Brazil presidential election: Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro face off in polarised vote

A tight race under a familiar shadow

Brazilians are voting in a deeply polarised presidential election that pits the country's veteran leftist incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, against the right-wing senator Flávio Bolsonaro.

The race is exceptionally close. While 12 candidates are on the ballot, only Lula and Bolsonaro have reached double figures. BBC Brasil’s poll tracker shows both candidates hovering around the 40% mark, with Lula holding a slim lead. If neither secures an outright majority on 4 October, the election will head to a run-off on 25 October. Almost 160 million Brazilians are eligible to vote.

Though he is not on the ballot, the shadow of Flávio’s father, the former president Jair Bolsonaro, hangs heavy over the vote. The elder Bolsonaro is currently under house arrest, serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election. Banished from social media and forbidden from making public statements, he still managed to make an appearance at his son’s campaign launch via an AI-generated deepfake avatar endorsing his candidacy.

The challenger's promise

The 45-year-old Flávio Bolsonaro has campaigned as the heir to his father’s right-wing movement, but with a less confrontational style. He has courted evangelical voters and the agricultural lobby, promising to slash regulations and "get the state off farmers' backs".

But his primary appeal is a fierce, authoritarian stance on law and order. He has promised to lower the age of criminal responsibility and introduce chemical castration for rapists. Bolsonaro has also positioned himself as a staunch ally of US President Donald Trump. His campaign was boosted in May when the US administration designated two of Brazil's largest drug gangs, the Comando Vermelho (CV) and the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), as foreign terrorist organisations—a move Lula’s government had opposed. If elected, Bolsonaro has promised to enlist Brazil in the "Shield of the Americas", a US-backed, right-wing regional security alliance.

Lula fights back against Trump's influence

Lula, who turns 81 this month and is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term, has framed the election as a defence of Brazilian democracy against foreign meddling. Relations between Lula and the Trump administration have been openly hostile. Trump has repeatedly tried to exert pressure on Brazil, threatening a 50% tariff in 2025 during Jair Bolsonaro’s trial, and slapping a 25% tariff on certain Brazilian goods this July. Brazil also denied visas to two US State Department officials who attempted to travel to the country to investigate "electoral integrity".

In his final campaign adverts, Lula accused his rival of being a US puppet, warning that Trump wants to "colonise Brazil" and steal its riches. Lula has campaigned on his environmental record—pointing to a decade-low rate of deforestation in the Amazon in early 2026—and his plans to improve healthcare and education.

Corruption scandal hits both sides

Yet the closing weeks of the campaign have been upended by a massive corruption scandal surrounding a jailed banker, Daniel Vorcaro. The scandal has damaged both campaigns.

Police launched an investigation into Flávio Bolsonaro for suspected corruption and money laundering after voice recordings emerged of him asking Vorcaro for 134 million reais (£19.5 million) to finance a film about his father.

But the fallout has also hit Lula. Police reports revealed that Vorcaro had extensive contacts with a phone number linked to Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes—the judge who oversaw Jair Bolsonaro’s trial—asking for help to avoid arrest. Moraes has denied wrongdoing, and Lula has tried to distance himself from the judge, but Flávio Bolsonaro has seized on the links, telling rallies that "voting for Lula means voting for Moraes."