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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Brazil’s former leftist leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva left no doubt he was planning a finale to a dramatic political career

Brazil can be rescued after being turned into a Covid-stricken global outcast by its “psychopath” president Jair Bolsonaro, the politician best placed to defeat him in next year’s presidential election has insisted.

In an interview with the Guardian, Brazil’s former leftist leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – who is widely tipped to challenge Bolsonaro for the presidency after regaining his political rights – stopped short of explicitly confirming he would run. But Lula, who rose from rural poverty to become Brazil’s first working-class president, left no doubt he was plotting an extraordinary finale to one of the world’s most enduring and dramatic political careers.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told a crowd of thousands that he did not have a ‘thirst for revenge’

Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has addressed thousands of jubilant supporters outside a union headquarters a day after being released from prison.

Dressed in a black blazer and T-shirt, Lula spoke from a stage outside the union near São Paulo that he once led and that served as the base for his political career. “During 580 days, I prepared myself spiritually, prepared myself to not have hatred, to not have thirst for revenge,” he said on Saturday.