Far right on the march and Lula’s failures: key drivers of Flávio Bolsonaro’s Brazil surge

Flavio Bolsonaro celebrates after winning the most votes in Brazil’s presidential election. He will go to a runoff against Lula on 25 October. Photograph: Adriano Machado/ReutersView image in fullscreenFlavio Bolsonaro celebrates after winning the most votes in Brazil’s presidential election.

1. 1. The evangelical churchBrazil’s evangelical church has expanded dramatically since the 1980s, with evangelical Christians now making up nearly a third of the population.Many evangelical voters – often influenced by church leaders – have thrown their weight behind the radical populist movement built by Jair Bolsonaro, and now spearheaded by his evangelical eldest son. As president from 2018 to 2022, Bolsonaro’s ultra-conservative policies helped him cement a lasting alliance with powerful megachurch leaders such as the televangelist Silas Malafaia.“This religious machine … was put at the service of Bolsonarismo: starting with these pastors who have millions of followers on social media, who buy airtime on TV, who lead churches with millions of members, and who turned themselves into canvassers for the Bolsonaro family,” said Mello Franco.
2. 2. Urban violenceMello Franco believed urban violence was another factor that had turbocharged the “far-right windstorm” sweeping Brazil.Rightwing populists such as the pro-gun Bolsonaros were offering voters “misguided but easy-to-understand solutions” to high crime rates, such as increased police violence, mass incarceration and lowering the age of criminal responsibility. “This appeals to an electorate that is scared of violence and crime,” Mello Franco said.The leading light of such “security populism” in Latin America is El Salvador’s authoritarian president, Nayib Bukele, who has jailed thousands of people, often without due process, in his successful bid to cut murder rates. Mello Franco said El Salvador’s “proto-dictator” and his supposedly “magic solutions” had been held up as an inspiration by Bolsonarista politicians during the 2026 campaign.Such hardline proposals have also been boosted by Donald Trump’s decision to designate Brazil’s two biggest crime groups, Rio’s Red Command and São Paulo’s PCC, as foreign terrorist organizations. On the campaign trail, Bolsonaro and his allies have vowed to “neutralize narco-terrorists” and chemically castrate rapists – promises that appear to have won over many violence-weary voters.
3. 3. Lula’s campaignAnalysts say Lula’s failure to focus on day-to-day issues such as crime may have hurt his prospects.The leftwing veteran spent much of the campaign vowing to defend Brazil’s sovereignty from Donald Trump’s “colonial” designs and protect its rare earth reserves. “Meanwhile, what voters wanted were solutions to more immediate problems such as bank debts, the cost of food, and insecurity,” Mello Franco said.During one recent rally in suburban Rio, some Lula supporters visibly zoned out as the president waxed lyrical about critical minerals and artificial intelligence.Political analyst Thomas Traumann, who was spokesperson for the former leftwing president Dilma Rousseff, believed Lula’s third administration had ignored a large chunk of society that was unsatisfied over economic issues or because of controversies involving the supreme court.“The government treated any kind of criticism … as a display of fascism – which undoubtedly exists in Brazil – and elitism, which also exists,” he said. “But what also exists is a group of voters who expected more from the government and who are neither fascists, nor elitists. They are simply people who didn’t like the government and decided to punish it.”.
4. 4. Um Biden brasileiro? Alguns críticos também apontaram a idade de Lula como seu ponto fraco e o culpam por não conseguir produzir um sucessor óbvio. Ele fará 81 anos dois dias após o segundo turno de 25 de outubro. Uma história recente no Economist chamou Lula de “um esquecido de esquerda” e o comparou ao “líder geriátrico” Joe Biden, que foi forçado a abandonar sua campanha de reeleição de 2024 após uma performance desastrosa no debate contra Trump. Traumann chamou as dúvidas sobre o estado físico ou mental de Lula de “ridículas”. “Quando você o vê falar, pode perceber que não se trata disso,” disse ele sobre o octogenário que frequenta academia. Mello Franco concordou: “Ao contrário de Biden, Lula nunca demonstrou qualquer tipo de fraqueza física ou comprometimento cognitivo. Não acho que isso tenha sido um problema.” Mas Traumann viu uma semelhança com o ex-presidente dos EUA: como Biden, Lula era teimoso, não escutava o suficiente os outros e parecia achar que indicadores econômicos decentes eram suficientes para garantir a reeleição. “Essa desconexão da realidade me lembra Biden,” disse ele, atribuindo isso à “teimosia da idade”. Desde o início da campanha, Lula parecia acreditar que “a eleição estava garantida”. “E não estava,” disse Traumann.
5. 5. The global far rightMany observers saw Sunday’s rightwing victory as another chapter in the global advance of the social media-savvy far right.“We’re seeing this revolution in many other parts of the world. We’re seeing this in the US, we’re seeing it in parts of Latin America, we’re see this in a different way in Europe,” said Miguel Lagos, a political scientist.Lagos believed that in Brazil, the movement was driven by a deep “rage against the classical political elites” including journalists, traditional politicians and intellectuals.Jair Bolsonaro and his son Flávio are career politicians. Between them, they have spent half a century working in Rio’s state legislature or the Brazilian congress. Even so, father and son have managed to portray themselves as Trump-style anti-establishment outsiders who have come to drain a swamp of which they, too, are part.Mello Franco believed Bolsonaro was now the favourite to become president. “But I don’t think the contest is over,” he cautioned. “Brazil is always showing us that plot twists aren’t just possible – they’re practically part of the landscape.”.

He will go to a runoff against Lula on 25 October. Photograph: Adriano Machado/ReutersBrazilFar right on the march and Lula’s failures: key drivers of Flávio Bolsonaro’s Brazil surgeExperts say strength of evangelical church and stubbornness of Lula, 80, also helped propel Jair Bolsonaro’s son to first-round election win.

Tom Phillips in Rio de JaneiroMon 5 Oct 2026 14. 42 EDTLast modified on Mon 5 Oct 2026 18. 07 EDTSharePrefer the Guardian on GoogleOn Sunday night, as the scale of the far-right triumph in Brazil sank in, an adapted football chant rang out in one of Rio’s most leftwing areas.

But the scale of the challenge facing the veteran leftist looks immense after Flávio Bolsonaro’s shock first-round win, which analysts attribute to a complex lattice of social, political and religious phenomena.

Among the main drivers behind Bolsonaro’s strong showing.