Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during a campaign event in Natal, Brazil. Photo courtesy Lula Oficial/Flickr.

Brazil is fast approaching a decisive presidential runoff, with a revanchist far-right seeking to consolidate its political power as a growing movement of students and workers mobilizes in defence of democracy.

The contest between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party and Flávio Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party—political heir to former President Jair Bolsonaro—is a showdown between competing visions of Brazil’s future. This is not simply a confrontation between left and right. Bolsonarismo has evolved into a potent movement whose ambitions extend beyond winning elections to reshaping Brazil’s democratic institutions.

The first round of Brazil’s general election took place on October 4, when more than 100 million voters cast their ballots for president, two senators, one state governor, one federal deputy (equivalent to an MP in Canada) and one state deputy (equivalent to an MLA). Bolsonaro received 47 percent of the vote, while Lula garnered 45 percent. With neither candidate securing more than 50 percent of valid votes, a runoff will take place on October 25.

Bolsonaro’s political success owes much to the movement his father spent decades cultivating. Jair Bolsonaro built an almost religious following, creating a Trump-like personality cult that resonated with large segments of Brazil’s working-class. Rising to prominence through appearances on daytime television, the elder Bolsonaro used crude language to offer simplistic answers to complicated questions. On air, he boasted that he would rather have a dead son than a homosexual one, denied the historical reality of Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship, and even paid tribute, during Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment session in Congress, to the general who had tortured her while she was in prison.

Alongside his inflammatory rhetoric, Jair Bolsonaro cultivated alliances with neo-Pentecostal politicians and religious leaders who shared his far-right views. Throughout his political career, he moved through more than eight right-wing parties to improve his electoral prospects, exploiting a fragmented party system in which politicians frequently switch allegiances in pursuit of higher office.

His relationship with Brazil’s evangelical movement deepened in 2013, when he married Michelle Firmo in a ceremony officiated by Silas Malafaia, an influential evangelical pastor associated with Assembleia de Deus. The marriage helped consolidate his ties to influential religious networks. With television no longer sufficient to reach his growing base, Bolsonaro expanded his presence through evangelical networks on social media, reaching a broader audience and helping build a grassroots movement around far-right conservative values.

Flávio Bolsonaro has inherited this political infrastructure and drawn on the same religious alliances and digital networks to advance his presidential campaign. But the movement his father created has also developed a political identity extending beyond the Bolsonaro family itself.

More than just a political current linked to the Liberal Party, Bolsonarismo has established itself as a parallel political structure, possessing its own distinct strategies, languagem and mechanisms for organization and mobilization. Its strength lies, above all, in an extensive network of evangelical churches, digital influencers, and communicators who craft narratives, rally supporters and keep their base politically engaged and ideologically cohesive, often operating outside conventional political institutions.

The movement’s reach extends beyond Brazil. Jair Bolsonaro cultivated close ties with Donald Trump and the international far-right, relationships that Flávio has sought to preserve as he pursues the presidency. These connections have placed Brazil’s domestic political struggle within a broader transnational network of conservative political power.

Fearing the erosion of its dominance over the Western Hemisphere, Washington has resorted to increasingly aggressive measures, including sanctions and election interference. Venezuela was a recent target of this offensive. Meanwhile, Cuba, whose population has endured a punishing, decades-long embargo, faces an intensifying humanitarian crisis as Trump and Marco Rubio revive threats of military intervention and regime change. Even Washington’s closest allies have not been spared, as Trump’s economic aggression against Canada over trade demonstrates.

Brazil’s election is........

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