In Brazil’s election this weekend, democracy itself is at stake. Far-right Jair Bolsonaro leads the first-round polls by ten points. In simulations of a second-round runoff, Bolsonaro is neck-and-neck with the Workers Party’s (PT) Fernando Haddad, former president Lula’s anointed successor. While this may look like another case of the “populist wave” sweeping the globe, the situation is even more grave.

Both domestic media in Brazil as well as foreign papers have tried to frame the election as “a contest between populists from the far left and right,” as the Financial Times put it. It is hugely misleading to draw any equivalency between these two candidates.

Haddad is most known for painting bike lanes; Bolsonaro defends torture. As São Paulo mayor, Haddad won the Bloomberg Philanthropies “Mayors Challenge” in 2016; Bolsonaro recently threatened to machine gun Workers Party supporters while on the campaign trail and claimed he will not respect any election result in which he is not the winner.