Brazil’s turns right: Bolsonaro in pole position as election goes to run-off

S unday witnessed the far-right wave rolling across Latin American politics break over Brazil . Senator Flávio Bolsonaro defied polls, financial scandal and even claims of orgies with prostitutes to pip incumbent leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the first round of the presidential election. Flávio’s lead over Lula was narrow – 47.03 to 45.16 per cent – but he goes into the run-off in three weeks as favourite. Nearly all those candidates now eliminated were on the right and he will be expected to grab a majority of their votes. History is also on his side. Since Brazil introduced two rounds for presidential elections in1989, the winner of the first has always gone on to triumph in the run-off. It is a remarkable turnaround for the scandal-plagued Bolsonaro family whose leader Jair Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year sentence for a coup attempt after he lost the 2022 presidential election to Lula. Now, after Sunday’s count, Bolsonaro senior sees his wife Michelle and son Carlos elected senators, another son Jair Renan elected a federal deputy and his eldest son Flávio now in pole position to become president. Brazil's president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and right-wing presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro. Photograph: Evaristo SA and Mauro Pimentel/AFP/Getty Images Should Flávio win in three weeks’ time he has vowed to negotiate an amnesty for his father or pardon him. Sunday’s result is a bitter blow for Lula. It is his first setback as a candidate since 1998 when he lost his third bid for the presidency. In the three victorious races he has contested since then he has always been in front. Now he must pull off an unprecedented feat and come from behind. A wily old campaigner, he will back himself to overturn the small gap to his 45-year old rival. His best hope of doing so is tapping into the 21 per cent of the electorate who abstained. He still has the powerful weapon of the apparatus of Brazil’s federal government at his disposal. [ Brazil’s poor once propelled Lula to power. Now many are wavering Opens in new window ] But having taken advantage of an incumbent’s privilege to spend wildly in the campaign already, it is not clear if more financial inducements will work in the short time left. Even more challenging, Lula is now operating in a political environment that has decisively turned to the far right. Flávio’s allies won eye-catching victories in down-ticket races across Brazil, with the exception of the northeast region, now the last big redoubt of Lula’s Workers Party. They won more governorships and senate seats than any other grouping and will dominate the new congress. While Brazil’s left was Sunday’s most notable victim, the country’straditional right emerged nationally a much reduced force. Another big loser was the supreme court which last year convicted Jair Bolsonaro for his coup attempt. The far right’s decision to put revenge for this historic verdict at the heart of its campaign has been vindicated, helped by the fact that Alexandre de Moraes, the justice who led the effort to jail Bolsonaro senior, is now mired in a corruption scandal. [ The Bolsonaro comeback: can Brazil’s most divisive dynasty reclaim power? Opens in new window ] A push to impeach the court’s most compromised members now beckons in the new congress. As he looks to defy history, Lula appears set to double down on negative campaigning. In his speech after Sunday’s results he pointed the way referring to his opponent’s “dark connections ... regarding organised crime”. But Flávio’s long-established links to Rio de Janeiro’s criminal underworld have so far not proved a political liability. Even a well-sourced report last week by an award-winning investigative reporter of his participation in orgies with call girls did little to damage his campaign. Lula must be left wondering just what sort of scandal might derail the Bolsonaros’ march back to power.