Far-right presidential candidate’s TV debate swipe at rival backfires as people take to social media to parody it

To Flávio Bolsonaro and his publicists, it must have seemed an ingenious idea that would expose his rival’s supposed crookedness on the eve of Brazil’s presidential election.

But the far-right politician’s decision to attend a primetime television debate against his leftwing opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with the word “corrupto” (corrupt) written on the palm of his hand has backfired.