Supporters of leftwing frontrunner confident he will prevail as 156 million Brazilians cast their votes
Gabriela Leoncio has been waiting for the chance to free Brazil from Jair Bolsonaro for four years. On Sunday that chance came.
“It’s been a joke-slash-tragedy,” the restaurant host, 29, said of the president’s tumultuous far-right administration as she cast her vote against him in her country’s most important election in decades.
Continue reading...But hopes leftwing former president will defeat Jair Bolsonaro tempered by fear a runoff contest could mean weeks of turmoil and violence
Brazil’s former leftwing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is on the brink of an astonishing political comeback, with polls suggesting he is poised to defeat his far-right rival Jair Bolsonaro in Sunday’s election.
Eve of election polls suggested Lula was within a whisker of securing the overall majority of votes that would guarantee him a first-round victory against Brazil’s radical incumbent, whose calamitous Covid response, assault on the Amazon and foul-mouthed threats to democracy have alienated more than half of the population.
Continue reading...Brazil’s far-right president claims that leftwing rival Lula will repress clergy like Ortega but so far with little apparent success
More than 4,000km and an ideological abyss separate the capitals of Nicaragua and Brazil, where an acrimonious race for the presidency is under way.
But the Central American country has found itself at the centre of Brazil’s election debate as its far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro seeks to weaponise Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian crackdown on the Catholic church to attack his leftist challenger, the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Continue reading...Speaking from the balcony of his ambassador’s home, Brazilian president rounds on leftists, abortion and ‘gender ideology’
Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has been accused of using the Queen’s funeral as a political soapbox after he flew into London to deliver a speech to supporters about the dangers of leftists, abortion and “gender ideology”.
Speaking from the balcony of the Brazilian ambassador’s 19th-century Mayfair home on Sunday, the South American populist voiced “profound respect” for the royal family and UK citizens and claimed that honouring Queen Elizabeth II was the “main objective” of his visit to London.
Continue reading...Polls show former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is on course for a return to power
It was a scene that could have been plucked from Brazil’s history books: an enraptured crowd, a sea of flags and, on stage above them, a bearded leftist in a bright red shirt.
“The president of hope is here!” the master of ceremonies roared as the star of the show arrived in a police convoy to address the people whose country he is promising to save.
Continue reading...Political violence breaks out in Mato Grosso state after argument between followers of rival presidential candidates
A supporter of Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has stabbed to death a backer of leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in the latest instance of rising political tensions in the buildup to this year’s election.
The violence happened in the west-central state of Mato Grosso, after tempers frayed during an argument over support for the two candidates. Bolsonaro trails Lula in the polls in an election riven by intense polarisation.
Continue reading...Brazilian president must ‘explain the origins of this money’, says reporter behind seven-month investigation
Jair Bolsonaro’s murky family finances have come under renewed scrutiny after claims the Brazilian president and close relatives used cash to pay for more than 50 properties worth millions of dollars.
The allegations – the result of a seven-month investigation by the Brazilian news group UOL – suggest that between 1990 and 2022, members of the Bolsonaro clan repeatedly used large sums of cash to pay for flats, houses and plots of land in cities including Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Continue reading...Ex-president says he will clamp down on illegal miners and loggers after murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira
The leading candidate to become Brazil’s next president has vowed to launch a major crackdown on the illegal miners and loggers laying waste to the Amazon in the wake of the “barbaric” murders of the Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and the British journalist Dom Phillips.
Speaking to foreign journalists in São Paulo, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva paid tribute to the two men, who were gunned down in June while documenting the historic assault on Indigenous lands that has unfolded under Brazil’s current leader, Jair Bolsonaro.
Continue reading...Leftwing frontrunner counters far-right president’s efforts to demonize him with evangelical voters in bitterly divided country
Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has formally launched his campaign to reclaim the presidency with a ferocious broadside against his rival, Jair Bolsonaro, who he claimed was “possessed by the devil”.
Lula’s rebuke came on the first official day of campaigning before Brazil’s October election when 156.5 million citizens will choose the next leader of a bitterly divided nation.
Continue reading...Far-right president Jair Bolsonaro is trailing in the polls and has hinted he will not cede power if defeated
Campaigning in Brazil’s most important election for years formally gets under way this week amid fears of political violence on the campaign trail and possible turmoil before and after the October ballots.
Far-right president Jair Bolsonaro is trailing in the polls and has hinted he will not give up power if defeated by the leftist frontrunner and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Continue reading...Marcelo de Arruda was shot at his birthday party by a supporter of President Bolsonaro
Brazilian political leaders called for calm this week after the killing of a Workers’ party member prompted fears that political violence in the polarised nation will erupt in the run-up to October’s presidential election.
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the leftwing former president and Workers’ party leader who is currently leading the polls for the ballot on 2 October, sent his condolences to the family of the dead man, who belonged to his party, and called for “dialogue, tolerance and peace”.
Continue reading...Peruvian writer criticises incumbent’s ‘clowning around’ but says he is still preferable to former president
The Nobel prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa, Latin America’s most eminent living chronicler of power and corruption, has declared a preference for Jair Bolsonaro over Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as Brazil prepares to head to the polls later this year.
The 86-year-old Peruvian writer, who also holds Spanish citizenship, revealed his thoughts on October’s election during a talk in Uruguay on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Leftwinger tells rally that public must unite against far-right incumbent’s ‘incompetence and authoritarianism’
Brazil’s former leader Luiz Inació Lula da Silva has kickstarted what he hopes will be a sensational finale to one of Latin America’s most extraordinary political careers, publicly declaring his intention to challenge Jair Bolsonaro for the presidency and urging citizens to unite against the far-right populist’s “incompetence and authoritarianism”.
Speaking at a rally in São Paulo, where the one-time lathe operator began his spectacular rise to power as a union leader more than four decades ago, Lula publicly spelled out his ambition to reclaim the presidency for the first time.
Continue reading...Fears Brazilian president might refuse to accept defeat in this year’s election as leftist rival Lula is set to announce candidacy
The CIA director William Burns urged Jair Bolsonaro to stop questioning his country’s voting system, it has been claimed, amid growing fears the Brazilian president might refuse to accept defeat in this year’s election.
Polls suggest Bolsonaro, a far-right populist famed for his adulation of Donald Trump, will struggle to secure a second term when about 150 million Brazilians head to the polls in October to choose their next leader.
Continue reading...The 76-year-old former leader, jailed on corruption charges in 2018, is ready to run again and is ahead of incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the polls
For weeks Hilton Acioli wrestled with the melodies and lyrics that would become the theme tune to one of the most remarkable political careers in recent history.
Finally, one morning in the winter of 1989, something clicked. “Lula lá – a star is sparkling. Lula lá – the flourishing of hope,” the Cat Stevens-loving Brazilian songsmith sang as he sat before his computer with a guitar.
Continue reading...Electoral judge outlaws leftist ‘propaganda’ at Lollapalooza, months before October election
Artists and celebrities in Brazil have voiced outrage after an electoral judge ordered one of the country’s biggest music festivals to outlaw “political demonstrations” by performers after a legal challenge from President Jair Bolsonaro’s political party.
Lawyers representing Bolsonaro’s Liberal party made their petition to the supreme electoral court on Saturday after Brazil’s far-right leader was pilloried at this weekend’s Lollapalooza event by pop stars and rappers, including the British singer Marina.
Continue reading...Outcry as club that is symbol of black resistance finds itself at the centre of politically charged squabble over Bolsonaro’s far-right government
The beer-soaked samba session was drawing to a close and, as usual, the crowd was preparing to vent its spleen.
As percussionists from one of Rio’s top samba groups hammered their tamborins and tantãs, revelers raised their glasses and let out loud, cathartic cheers demanding the removal of a president they despise. “Fora Bolsonaro!” jeered the sweat-drenched throng. “Bolsonaro out!”
Continue reading...Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva gets a fist bump from Olaf Scholz and an invitation to the presidential palace from Macron
It was a welcome fit for a president.
Republican Guards at the Élysée Palace. A standing ovation at the European Parliament. A front-page interview in Spain’s top newspaper in which the visiting dignitary was hailed as a “cyclone” of energy.
Continue reading...The far-right president has never hidden his admiration for dictatorship. There are growing fears he will not accept defeat in next year’s election
Though Jair Bolsonaro’s opponents warned of the dangers, most voters in the world’s fourth largest democracy were willing to elect a declared admirer of dictatorship. Many are now having second thoughts. The president’s popularity has plummeted, with almost two-thirds of Brazilians now rejecting him. Even those unfazed by the relentlessness of his aggressive ultra-conservatism have balked at a supreme court investigation into his own conduct and corruption allegations surrounding his allies and family, surging inflation and unemployment, and above all his decision to let Covid run rampant, killing more than 580,000 Brazilians.
But those who backed him are getting what they voted for: a man with unabashed disdain for democracy and admiration for force. On current polling, the popular though polarising former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would beat him easily in 2022’s election. Mr Bolsonaro is acting accordingly. The president has already sought to cast doubt on electronic voting, and limited the power of tech companies to remove content – making it harder to tackle disinformation. On Tuesday, he unleashed rallies in the country’s biggest cities, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and São Paulo. Though not quite on the scale he hoped for, the crowds were still sufficiently large and fervid to send his message. If the supreme court does not shift its course, “it may suffer that which we don’t want”, Mr Bolsonaro warned. Diehard supporters had a less euphemistic version of how to handle his opponents: “Shut down the court,” and “Shoot them”.
Continue reading...His rural voters see the embattled president as a ‘messenger from God’. And this week they will march in the cities to support him
Jair Bolsonaro supporters aren’t hard to find in Sinop, an agricultural boomtown in the Brazilian Amazon where nearly 80% of voters backed the country’s ultra-conservative leader in the 2018 election.
“He’s a president of the people,” said Marcos Watanabe, the head of the city’s conservative association, sporting a T-shirt stamped with Bolsonaro’s name.
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