Tens of millions of progressives turn out in hopes of unseating Jair Bolsonaro from presidency after bitterly fought campaign

The future of one of the world’s largest democracies and the Amazon rainforest was on a knife-edge as Brazil held its most important election in decades and its far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, battled to cling to power amid claims that security forces were engaged in a pro-Bolsonaro voter suppression campaign.

Polls on the eve of the election had showed Bolsonaro trailing his leftist rival, the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, by a margin of four to eight percentage points, although first-round polls had underestimated support for the incumbent. Lula won the recent first round by about 6mvotes but fell just short of the overall majority that would have guaranteed him an outright win.

Polls – which underestimated incumbent’s vote in first round – give Workers’ party leader 52% to 48% advantage

Brazilians head to the polls on Sunday in their most important election for years, with leftist challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva the slight favourite to put an end to four years of destructive government by the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.

Opinion polls on the eve of the ballot gave Lula, as the Workers’ party candidate is known, a lead of between four and eight percentage points.

The government slush fund, which amounts to about one-fifth of the entire discretionary spending budget, has little or no oversight

When historians write books about why so many Brazilians voted for the far-right they will justifiably focus on ideological, political and social issues. But there is another key reason why President Jair Bolsonaro is still competitive as Sunday’s runoff ballot approaches: he’s handing out billions from a government slush fund.

The fund is known as the “secret budget” because there is little or no oversight over where the money goes once it is handed to lawmakers.