Shortly after his controversial speech to the United Nations general assembly in September, Donald Trump gathered a dozen like-minded Latin American leaders and boasted that rightwing candidates had won all seven presidential elections held in the region since he began his second term. Those electoral victories – and the US takeover of Venezuela after capturing Nicolás Maduro – have left just six Latin American countries under leftwing governments: regional heavyweights Brazil and Mexico, small Uruguay and Guatemala, and the isolated regimes of Cuba and Nicaragua. On Sunday, Brazilians go to the polls in a presidential election that many believe will determine more than Latin America’s largest country’s fate for the next four years.
Given Mexico’s geographic proximity and unique economic relationship with the US, analysts see Brazil as perhaps the last country in the region still capable of saying “no” to Trump’s whims – something that could change dramatically depending on the election result. Polls indicate a neck-and-neck race between Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the 80-year-old leftist incumbent who is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term, and Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, the far-right senator son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. But if Flávio wins, it would be a real blow to the left and a major boost to the far-right agenda globally,” added Telles.
Lula and Bolsonaro differ sharply on the US, including over what has become Trump’s main foreign policy for the region: the so-called “war on drugs” used to justify dozens of airstrikes on boats that have killed more than 230 people and joint operations involving US military personnel on land. While Bolsonaro has pledged to join the Shield of the Americas and to follow an “iron fist” approach to crime, Lula has raised concerns about sovereignty and said it is “sad to see the inferiority complex of Latin American presidents” who are part of the Trump-created coalition. Lula and Trump’s relationship has swung between not speaking and public displays of warmth, but it is currently at a low point, with the Brazilian president and Democratic members of the US Congress accusing Washington of trying to interfere in Bolsonaro’s favour.
At the latest Shield of the Americas meeting, Trump made clear that it was not all about security. The US president also referred to the “tremendous natural wealth” of Latin American countries, which he said could not “be taken over by hostile outside powers” – widely understood as a reference to China. Privileged access to Brazil’s rare earths and critical minerals was one of the conditions Washington imposed in exchange for not applying tariffs, which Lula rejected.
Bolsonaro, on the other hand, has offered those natural resources as the “solution” to help the US “break its dependence on China”. As in recent elections across Latin America, the race includes other candidates but is polarised between two leading candidates. Lula and Bolsonaro have alternated as frontrunners in the final stretch, making the outcome unpredictable; if neither wins 50% plus one of the votes, there will be a runoff on 25 October.
Bolsonaro’s only previous bid for an executive role in government ended ignominiously when he took fourth place in Rio’s 2016 mayoral race. But analysts say there are several reasons why a congressman best known for his family name and corruption allegations – some shelved, others still under investigation – has emerged as a serious challenger to a three-time president. Unemployment, poverty and inflation have fallen, and average incomes have risen, but so has household debt – something many attribute to online betting, which the older Bolsonaro left unregulated and Lula banned days before the vote.
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