US Meddling in Brazil May Decide Latin America’s Future
Brazil’s presidential election is on a knife-edge. Right-winger Flávio Bolsonaro has powerful interests on his side but is also counting on the Trump administration’s help to push him over the line.
Flávio Bolsonaro defends the gambling lobby, banking fraudsters, imperial Miami, organized crime, and social-security scammers. He is also running a moral values campaign that could make him Brazil’s next president. (Maira Erlich / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
As Brazil heads toward Sunday’s presidential election first round, the contest is on a knife-edge. Polls show left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva neck and neck with the ultraconservative Flávio Bolsonaro, the oldest of his imprisoned father’s brood.
Jair Bolsonaro was defeated in 2022, as was the subsequent attempted coup that led to his criminal conviction. (He is now under house arrest.) Still, Bolsonarismo remained a powerful force. Compared to the high drama of four years ago, this campaign has at times seemed subdued, in part because most other candidates essentially offer duller, more gray-haired versions of Bolsonarismo.
And yet the stakes couldn’t be higher. Not only is Brazilian democracy again on the line, but the region more widely is increasingly subject to right-wing authoritarians in thrall to Donald Trump and Marco Rubio. Brazil is for now an exception, along with Mexico — that is, Latin America’s two largest economies and most populous countries.
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