By Tainá Garcia Maia
On October 25, Brazilians will choose between Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro in a presidential runoff that polls describe as a statistical tie. Much more than a choice of political spectrum is at play in what might be the most crucial election for Brazilian democracy since its redemocratization in the mid-1980s. The result will likely have major repercussions for the social rights of marginalized groups, Brazil’s ability to guide and benefit from its economic development as a sovereign nation, and the survival of its democracy as we know it.
The Election and the Candidates
Although 12 candidates ran for president in the first round on October 4, the race came down to two: Lula, Brazil’s three-time president and the incumbent after defeating Jair Messias Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential election, and Flávio Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son and a senator for Rio de Janeiro. Flávio Bolsonaro received 47.03% of valid votes, and Lula 45.16%, a difference of 2,227,651 votes.
Lula remains a popular leader in Brazil, credited with historic social gains. However, his popularity is matched by his rejection in a highly polarized Brazil: 46% of voters polled by Datafolha reject him, with many associating him with corruption scandals that led to his 2017 conviction, later annulled by the Federal Supreme Court. Flávio Bolsonaro, in turn, has never been a particularly popular politician on his own and faces rejection levels similar to Lula’s. He is accused of maintaining close ties with the militia of Rio de Janeiro; was investigated for rachadinha, a salary kickback scheme in which legislators require their (sometimes fictitious) staff to hand back part of their publicly funded salaries – though the case was annulled on procedural grounds–; is currently investigated for money laundering; and is criticized for his connections with Daniel Vorcaro, the jailed former owner of the Brazilian bank Banco Master, from whom he solicited tens of millions of reais to fund Dark Horse, a biopic of his father. Yet, he represents the Bolsonaro family, with his father unable to run for president as he is currently under house arrest for his role in the attempted coup d’état after his defeat in the 2022 elections.
Social Gains at Risk
In his 2023 Inaugural Address at the National Congress, Lula recalled his first inauguration, twenty years earlier:
“On that occasion, I said that my life’s mission would be fulfilled when every Brazilian man and woman could eat three meals a day. Having to repeat this commitment today— given the rise of poverty and the return of hunger, which we had overcome— is the most serious symptom of the devastation that has been inflicted upon the country in recent years.”
Under Jair Bolsonaro’s government, Brazil returned to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s Hunger Map and saw significant swings in poverty and extreme poverty rates, measured by both the World Bank and Brazil’s domestic poverty lines. After Lula returned to the presidency, already in the first year of his mandate, Brazil reached a record low in extreme poverty, as measured by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) using the International Poverty Line (IPL) and the World Bank’s upper-middle-income poverty line. By the end of his second year in office, the country exited FAO’s Hunger Map once again. The following year, it reached its lowest unemployment rate.
The most recent IBGE data show that Brazil’s extreme poverty level, as measured by the IPL, is 3.5%; its relative poverty rate using the OECD line is 21.4%; and its unemployment rate is 5.3%. Over Lula’s third term, the minimum wage has risen more than 11% in real terms, compared with around 1% under Jair Bolsonaro. Lula also proposed a bill, later approved by the legislature, requiring equal salaries for men and women performing the same work. His administration created the Pé-de-Meia Program (“Nest Egg” Program), which pays low-income public high-school students to enroll, attend, and complete each school year and to sit the national university entrance exam, with part of the money saved until graduation, to reduce dropout rates. Lula also backed abolishing the 6×1 work schedule (i.e. six workdays for a single day of rest) and reducing weekly work hours from 44 to 40.
In contrast, Flávio Bolsonaro’s government plan echoes his father’s: it proposes cutting labor costs and public spending; promoting the principle of “negotiated over legislated”, under which workers and companies would set working conditions directly rather than follow uniform rules; expanding privatization; and supporting agribusiness and restructuring the sector’s debt. While his government plan pledges to “maintain and improve” social programs, it frames them mainly as a starting point for employment and credit. Furthermore, although Flávio Bolsonaro ultimately voted in the Senate to abolish the 6×1 work schedule, he had consistently criticized and opposed this reform and indicated that reversions might take place. Setbacks in social gains affect Brazil as a whole and its collective project of eradicating poverty and mitigating socio-economic and regional inequalities. Yet they particularly affect historically oppressed groups that are overrepresented among those living in economic vulnerability, such as the black and brown population and women.
Sovereignty
Brazil has the world’s second-largest rare-earth reserves. Rare earths are increasingly vital to the global economy, including for clean energy, digital technology, and defense. Brazil also holds 60% of the Amazon, a biome rich in natural resources and key to slowing climate change. According to the International Monetary Fund, the country is projected to become the world’s 8th-largest economy by 2027.
In 2026, after more than three years of policies led by Marina Silva as Lula’s minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Brazil reached a historical low in Amazon deforestation. By comparison, Amazon deforestation increased by approximately 79% between 2018 (the year before the start of the Bolsonaro administration) and 2022 (the last year of his mandate).
The United States (US) is keenly interested in these resources: Brazil’s rare earths featured in negotiations between Trump and Lula over US tariffs on Brazil – tariffs the Bolsonaro family supported and allegedly requested. At a Conservative Political Action Conference in the US in March this year, Flávio Bolsonaro presented Brazil as the solution to end the United States’ dependence on China for critical minerals, especially rare earths, while calling Lula “openly anti-American.” By contrast, the current government has declined to join Trump’s critical minerals alliance and seeks to process rather than only export these minerals domestically.
10 days before the first round of the election, 31 members of the US Congress have accused the Administration of maintaining “a sustained, multifaceted campaign of interference and destabilization in Brazil”. In the “open veins” of Latin America, to use the metaphor of the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, lies not only past colonialism but also today’s imperialism. One cannot understand the broad turn to the far right in Latin America, or this year’s elections in Brazil, without understanding the US’s interests and influence in the region.
The Future of Democracy
According to V-Dem, one year into Jair Bolsonaro’s presidential mandate, Brazil had already begun to be affected by autocratization. In 2021, V-Dem noted increased government censorship and hostility toward non-partisan media. In 2022, the institute highlighted Jair Bolsonaro’s anti-democratic calls, including for the removal of Supreme Court justices. After Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat, V-Dem finds that the country has halted and “turned around autocratization”.
The risk for Brazilian democracy of the Bolsonaro family returning to the presidency now appears even higher. Two days after the first round, Flávio Bolsonaro said he would have a majority in Congress to change Brazil’s Constitution and, in his words, “redemocratize” the country. One day later, he explained that he was referring to some of his well-known proposals, such as reforming the Judiciary, with a focus on the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court – an institutional counterweight during the 2022 elections and the institution that decided the criminal prosecutions of the attempted coup d’état, including the case of Jair Bolsonaro.
Conclusion – Between Autonomy and Dominance
While sitting as a judge at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Brazilian jurist Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade wrote:
“Any relationship of dominance and submission brings with it the germ of destruction, and the only true and authentic “progress” is that which resides in an order based on human values. (…) We must preserve the cultural patrimony of humankind amidst a true spirit of solidarity, without which the future of humankind is threatened.”
Brazil now faces a crucial decision whose impact will be felt for much more than the next presidential mandate’s 4 years. Brazil is deciding, not without indirect foreign interference, what progress means for the nation and whether it is tied to autonomy for all, including historically oppressed and invisibilized groups, or the maintenance and exacerbation of relations of dominance and oppression, both domestically and internationally. Given the increasing fragility of democracies worldwide, the decline of multilateralism, and the Amazon’s global relevance, the answer will matter well beyond Brazil’s borders.
Tainá Garcia Maia is a Postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg of the Friedrich–Alexander University. Previously she was research fellow at the University of Münster (WWU), a visiting professional at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2018), and a Special Adviser at the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the United Nations (2015).
This article is published under the sole responsibility of the author, with editorial oversight. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial team or the CEU Democracy Institute.
