What to know about Brazil's election pitting Lula against Flávio Bolsonaro

What you need to know about Brazil’s election pitting Lula against Flávio Bolsonaro

Brazilians go to the polls on Sunday in a general election where the two leading presidential contenders have names that are instantly recognizable.

The sitting president, veteran left-wing figure Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva, is being challenged by 11 rivals, the best known of whom is right-wing politician Flávio Bolsonaro.

Four years ago, Lula narrowly beat Flávio Bolsonaro’s father, Jair. But the chaotic fallout from that election, which included Jair Bolsonaro being convicted of plotting a coup after thousands of his supporters stormed the Brazilian Congress, has left a lasting mark on the country’s politics and on this race.

At the start of his campaign, Flávio Bolsonaro showed a video featuring an AI-generated image of his father backing his bid.

Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing former army captain who led Brazil from 2019 to 2023, is not standing in this election.

The 71-year-old is not only barred from running for office, but is also serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election to Lula.

Because of recurring health issues, he is currently under house arrest rather than in prison, though he has been restricted from posting on social media or making public remarks.

Even so, his presence - and at times his animated, speaking image - remains highly visible in this election.

At the event where Flávio Bolsonaro formally launched his presidential campaign, an AI-generated avatar of Jair Bolsonaro endorsed his son’s candidacy.

When questioned by the Supreme Court over the deepfake, Jair Bolsonaro’s lawyers may have denied that he had authorized its use, but there is still little doubt that Flávio Bolsonaro has his father’s support.

Although 12 candidates are in the presidential race, only two have reached double digits in the polls: Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro.

BBC Brasil’s poll tracker shows both hovering around 40%, with Lula slightly ahead of Bolsonaro.

The other 11 candidates are polling at 4% or below.

If no candidate wins 50% of valid votes in the first round on 4 October, the top two will advance to a runoff on 25 October.

Polls indicate a runoff is very likely, though with a relatively large number of undecided voters only days before the vote, an outright victory cannot be completely ruled out.

BBC Brasil’s poll aggregator suggests that by the end of September, 9% of voters were either undecided or planning to spoil their ballot, cast a blank ballot, or stay away from the polls.

Brazilians aged 16 and older may vote, and voting is compulsory for literate citizens between 18 and 70, with fines for those who fail to cast a ballot.

Nearly 160 million Brazilians are eligible to vote in this election, and because polls usually survey only thousands of people, the final result can differ significantly from survey findings.

Lula, the 80-year-old candidate of the left-wing Workers’ Party, has already served as president three times.

He completed two consecutive terms from January 2003 to December 2010 and was widely praised for helping lift millions out of poverty through the cash-transfer programme Bolsa Família.

The former metalworker left office with record approval ratings of more than 80%, though his party was later hit by major corruption scandals.

Lula himself spent more than 18 months in prison between 2018 and 2019 after being convicted of corruption and money laundering, charges he has always denied.

Those convictions were overturned in 2021, allowing Lula to run in the 2022 presidential election, which he won by 1.8 percentage points over Jair Bolsonaro.

When he began his third term, he said it would be his last, yet his party backed him again this year even though he will turn 81 later this month.

He remains an imposing figure on the left. But while supporters called him the “saviour of the Amazon” ahead of the 2022 election and praised his commitment to protecting the rainforest, some environmentalists have criticized several of his recent decisions.

In particular, his support for exploratory oil drilling in offshore waters near the mouth of the Amazon has drawn criticism.

Lula says he is still committed to eventually phasing out fossil fuels and argues that oil revenue is essential to funding Brazil’s shift to clean energy.

His government has also pointed to falling deforestation in the Amazon - satellite data indicates that the area deforested in the first half of 2026 fell to its lowest level in the past decade - as evidence that its policies are succeeding.

During Lula’s latest term, relations with US President Donald Trump have been strained.

Referring to what Trump has called the “Donroe doctrine” - his administration’s national security strategy asserting that US dominance in the Western hemisphere should not be challenged - Lula has insisted that “Brazil does not fit into anyone’s backyard”.

In another barely disguised reference to both his opponent Flávio Bolsonaro and Trump administration figures who want the right-wing candidate to win, the Brazilian president has also warned that he will not accept “foreign and local enemies of democracy” interfering in the election.

Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, is Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son and has served as a senator since 2019.

Running for the right-wing Liberal Party (PL), he is generally seen as less combative than his father, but he is appealing to older Bolsonaro supporters by promising to largely follow in his footsteps.

During his time in the Senate, the trained lawyer has pushed a tough-on-crime agenda, calling for longer prison terms and looser gun laws, and arguing that “decent citizens” should be able to defend themselves against criminals.

He successfully lobbied for the US to designate Brazil-based criminal gangs Comando Vermelho (CV) and Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, a move Lula opposed.

He has also sought support from evangelicals and the agricultural sector as part of his campaign.

He has said he would cut what he calls unnecessary regulations and “get the state off farmers’ backs”.

When asked in an August interview with Globo whether he still believed - as he said in 2019 - that climate change did not exist, he admitted there had been “extreme climate events” but said those events were “cyclical”.

Flávio Bolsonaro has also actively courted Trump and members of his administration, presenting himself as a loyal ally during a White House meeting in May.

More recently, he said he would join the US-led anti-crime alliance that the Trump administration has named “Shield of the Americas” if elected.

Until a few months ago, Brazilians told pollsters that crime and security were their biggest concerns.

But in the weeks before the election, a scandal involving a jailed banker accused of orchestrating one of Brazil’s biggest financial fraud cases has pushed corruption to the top of the agenda.

The banker, Daniel Vorcaro, is well connected and has links to many influential figures in Brazil, on both the political right and left.

Flávio Bolsonaro admitted asking Vorcaro to finance a biopic about his father after voice recordings surfaced in which he could be heard requesting 134 million reais ($25.9m; £19.5m).

Police have since opened an investigation into Flávio Bolsonaro on suspicion of corruption and money laundering over the film’s financing.

But pollsters say Lula’s campaign was also damaged by the Vorcaro scandal, after alleged links emerged between the disgraced banker and one of Lula’s allies, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

Moraes is the judge who oversaw Jair Bolsonaro’s trial and has issued several later rulings on the conditions of his detention.

A police report indicated that Vorcaro had made many calls and sent numerous messages to a phone number officers say is linked to Moraes.

Investigators say Vorcaro asked the person he was speaking with for help avoiding arrest.

Moraes has denied any wrongdoing, but these latest revelations have meant that, in the decisive weeks before the election, attention shifted from the accusations against Flávio Bolsonaro to those against the Supreme Court justice.

Lula has tried to put distance between himself and Moraes, saying that “no one is above the law”, but his rival has already seized on the allegations against the judge for political advantage.

“Voting for Lula means voting for Moraes,” Flávio Bolsonaro told supporters at a rally, using the right’s deep hostility toward the judge to strengthen his own backing.