In a now viral video of a 2016 interview, the Brazilian president claims he would eat human flesh
It was a shocking statement, even for a politician who has glorified torturers and called for rivals to be shot.
“I’d eat an Indian, no problem at all,” Jair Bolsonaro bragged to a foreign journalist in 2016, as he described a trip to an Indigenous community where he had purportedly been offered the chance to consume human flesh.
Continue reading...Large area destroyed in September, as environmental criminals raced to wreck the region before possible change of president
Amazon deforestation has soared ahead of Brazil’s environmentally vital presidential election, with an area almost the size of Greater London lost last month alone.
Government satellites show a 1,455-sq km area of rainforest was destroyed in September, as environmental criminals raced to wreck the region before a possible change of president could bring Jair Bolsonaro’s era of destruction to an end.
Continue reading...Band says 45-year-old singer ‘under strict doctor’s orders’ to rest and eight Brazil shows on world tour will be postponed to next year
Coldplay has announced it is postponing several shows in its latest world tour after singer Chris Martin contracted “a serious lung infection”.
In a statement posted on its social media accounts and its website, the band expressed “deep regret” and said the eight postponed shows, all in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, would be rescheduled for early 2023.
Continue reading...Far-right president forces second round after closely trailing Lula, disappointing those who had hoped to turn a page on his influence
Tears filled Beatriz Simões’s eyes as she digested Jair Bolsonaro’s startlingly strong performance in Sunday’s Brazilian election.
Hours earlier the 34-year-old publicist had been convinced a hope-filled dawn was coming with the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as Brazil’s next leader.
Continue reading...One expert says many surveys overrepresented poor voters, and far-right supporters may just not respond
Not for the first time, the pollsters got it wrong. Far from being a sweeping win for the left, the first round of Brazil’s presidential elections was much closer than expected, with the country’s far-right president significantly outperforming predictions.
With almost all votes counted on Monday, Jair Bolsonaro’s veteran leftist rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, had secured 48.3%, while the populist incumbent was just five percentage points behind on 43.3%, a much narrower margin than most pre-election estimates.
Continue reading...Successes in congress as progressive standard bearer Lula is favourite to defeat Bolsonaro in second round of presidential vote
Brazil’s election result was a disappointment for those hoping to see a first-round win for the presidential challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva but there were still some reasons to be cheerful for the country’s left.
Not only is Lula favourite to win the 30 October runoff – he need only increase his vote share from 48.4% to 50+1 – but diversity got a boost in a few key parliamentary races.
Continue reading...Brazilians will go to the polls again after former president won the first vote but failed to secure a majority over the incumbent
Brazil’s acrimonious presidential race will go to a second round after the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva failed to secure the overall majority he needed to avoid a runoff with the far-right incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro.
With more than 99.5% of votes counted the leftist veteran had secured 48.3% of the vote, not enough to avoid the 30 October show down with his rightwing rival. Bolsonaro, who significantly out-performed pollsters’ predictions and will be buoyed by the result, received 43.3%.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed. You can read our full story on the results at the link below:
A Lula victory would represent the latest in a series of triumphs for a resurgent Latin American left, following the election of leftist leaders in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia and Chile.
“I’m going to win these elections so I can give the people the right to be happy again. The people need, deserve and have the right … to be happy once more,” Lula told journalists as he wrapped up his campaigning with a parade through the streets of São Paulo on Saturday.
Continue reading...Incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and former president Lula will go to a runoff election at the end of the month after a tighter than expected first round result
Brazil’s president is elected directly by the 156 million voters; there is no electoral college and no role for the legislature. A candidate needs more than 50% of the vote to be elected. If this does not happen in the first round, the top two candidates will go into a runoff election at the end of the month.
Continue reading...Polls suggest Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is close to majority of votes needed to stop election run-off against Jair Bolsonaro
Brazil’s leftwing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appeared on the verge of a startling political comeback on Sunday as more than 156 million Brazilians took part in the country’s most important election in decades.
As the veteran ex-president cast his vote in Brazil’s industrial heartlands on Sunday morning, Lula voiced optimism he was heading for victory over the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.
Continue reading...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...Paris Saint-Germain forward posts video in support of far-right president, who is trailing badly in polls ahead of Sunday’s vote
The Brazilian football star Neymar has come out in support of President Jair Bolsonaro, three days before the far-right leader looks set to lose a bitter re-election race against his leftist rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Lounging in a gaming chair, the Paris Saint-Germain forward recorded a video singing along to a Bolsonaro jingle and making V signs with both hands to signify 22, the number of Bolsonaro’s party as it appears on Brazil’s electronic ballots.
Continue reading...Figures likely to be an underestimate, says Global Witness, as land defenders are killed by hitmen, crime groups and governments
More than 1,700 murders of environmental activists were recorded over the past decade, an average of a killing nearly every two days, according to a new report.
Killed by hitmen, organised crime groups and their own governments, at least 1,733 land and environmental defenders were murdered between 2012 and 2021, figures from Global Witness show, with Brazil, Colombia, the Philippines, Mexico and Honduras the deadliest countries.
Continue reading...The woman likely to be the first transgender member of parliament says she still feels threat hanging over her
No one does political rags to riches stories quite like Brazil, but even in a nation where the most celebrated president in decades once shined shoes to survive, the story of Erika Hilton takes some beating.
The transgender teenager was kicked out of her house aged 14 and spent several years as a sex worker in rural Brazil before reconnecting with her mother and studying teaching and gerontology at university.
Continue reading...Investigation reveals cattle raised on Mỹky territory ended up in global supply chain including food giant
On one side of the fence, in dense forest, the Mỹky people grow their crops: cassava, pequi and cabriteiro fruit. On the other side, ranchers raise cattle on devastated land. That land is the Mỹky’s, they say.
Xinuxi Mỹky, the village elder, says this region used to be a forest where different villages thrived. Only one now remains and the farms have cut into that land as well. “This pasture, where the whites live, was also our village, but now they are raising cattle. The land belonged to us: Indigenous peoples.”
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...Police accused of unnecessary force as president’s son shares video of detention to show Britons ‘don’t like communists either’
The Metropolitan police have been accused of using unnecessary force and handing a propaganda coup to Brazil’s far right after a peaceful demonstrator was detained and handcuffed during a protest outside the Brazilian ambassador’s London residence.
Ali Rocha, a 50-year-old Brazilian and British citizen, and her flatmate were intercepted by officers on Sunday lunchtime as they joined a protest against Brazil’s radical rightwing president, Jair Bolsonaro, who was in the UK for the Queen’s funeral.
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...