Just over a decade ago, Brazil seemed to have finally “taken off,” appearing on the verge of fulfilling its potential as “the country of the future.” However, the last decade has seen declining living standards, unending corruption scandals, unemployment, inflation, dramatic rises in the cost of living, and attacks on the very fabric of its democracy. Brazil is a country that went in only a few short years from being generally respected — if not admired — to an international pariah state.

Now the country is on the verge of voting out its extreme-right president Jair Bolsonaro in today’s first-round election. Former president Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, the man set to win, is a familiar figure. After serving two terms, he went from leaving office in 2010 with a historic approval rating of 84 percent to spending nearly two years in prison on trumped-up corruption charges that have since been struck down by the country’s Supreme Court. In a historic comeback, Lula now leads all the polls by double digits, and the latest polling has him within the margin of error to win a first-round victory.

This predicted victory of course presumes that the coup that Bolsonaro has been threatening since he arrived in office either does not take place or fails. Bolsonaro is currently, with the tacit and explicit help of his supporters in the military and police, questioning the validity of Brazil’s internationally heralded electoral system. US Senators — led by Bernie Sanders — have issued strong statements in support of Brazilian democracy, in a rare break from the United States’ historic support for coups in the region. This also follows Brazil’s 2016 “congressional coup” that removed then president Dilma Rousseff from office, ushering in the historic crisis that the country finds itself in today.