On 4 October Brazil will hold an election which involves more than just the choice between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro. It is a struggle concerning sovereignty, democracy and Brazil’s position in a rapidly changing world, with Washington keeping a close watch.
Because of the isolation that occurred during the Bolsonaro years, Lula has succeeded in bringing Brazil back to the international stage. As part of his foreign policy, he has made multilateralism and Brazilian sovereignty two central pillars, with the aim of restoring Brazil’s position in the UN, the BRICS and other international organisations.
Flávio Bolsonaro, on the other hand, represents a completely different course. His win would result in a presidential pardon being granted to his father, Jair Bolsonaro, and other coup at tempters, would mean moving much closer to Donald Trump, and could possibly lead to a return to the kind of nationalist isolationism which characterised Bolsonaro’s presidency.
The election is therefore taking place on a number of fronts, sovereignty being one of them — an area where Lula has a solid political argument; on the other fronts of corruption and public security, where the Bolsonaro family has sought to take advantage of public anger, even though it, too, is facing serious questions.
The corruption paradox
Here is an extraordinary paradox: although Flávio Bolsonaro has positioned himself as an alternative to a political system which is allegedly riddled with corruption, he too has found himself implicated in the allegations concerning Banco Master, one of the biggest financial scandals in Brazil’s history.
The controversy surrounding Flávio’s connection with banker Daniel Vorcaro, who is currently in prison, has increased. He has been accused of trying to obtain about US$31 million to finance a biographical movie about his father—considerably more than the roughly US$1 million typically tied to such a project in Brazil. This money was allegedly sent to Havengate, a Texas-based investment fund connected to the Bolsonaro family and said to have been set up to support Eduardo Bolsonaro, who resides in Texas and has been lobbying the Trump administration against Brazil.
Eduardo has openly shown his influence in Washington. Following the investigations into himself and his father, and then the sentencing of his father to 27 years’ imprisonment for having attempted a coup d’état, he has tried to obtain pressure from the United States on the justices of the Brazilian Supreme Court and on the country’s Prosecutor General, and has also advocated the tariffs imposed by the United States on Brazilian products as well as Washington’s decision to designate two major Brazilian criminal organisations as terrorist groups. He has been successful in all these cases.
To Bolsonaro’s supporters, these measures are proof that Washington is at last dealing with what they describe as a Brazilian political establishment that is hostile to the Bolsonaro family. For the democratic camp, however, the measures represent the externalisation of a Brazilian political conflict and serve as an invitation for a foreign power to interfere directly in Brazil’s domestic affairs.
Security — and the risk of intervention
The fact that the Brazilian criminal organisations PCC and Comando Vermelho have been designated as terrorist organisations by the Trump administration — also lobbied by Eduardo Bolsonaro — has caused serious concern in Brazil, as it could mean a direct American intervention in Brazil under the pretext of combating terrorism. It is not disputed that organised crime is a serious problem in Brazil. The issue is rather who should be responsible for fighting it, and under what legal framework.
The fear being referred to is not merely theoretical in a region that has on numerous occasions seen American intervention. Moreover, Brazilian criminal organisations have an economic focus, not political; therefore, legally they cannot be classified as terrorists.
The issue of sovereignty is also coming up in connection with Brazil’s rare-earth reserves.
A worry among those who consider the possibility of a Bolsonaro win is that Brazil’s strategic mineral resources might be made available to American interests under terms favourable to Washington’s supply chains. This concern has been intensified by meetings between the Bolsonaro family, Trump, and officials at the State Department.
Lula’s strategy is different. His government does not just want Brazil to export rare earths in their raw form but to establish the capacity for processing them, attract technology, and build domestic industrial capabilities linked to these resources. The aim is to make strategic minerals a means of promoting Brazilian industrial and technological development rather than having just another commodity exported.
Rubio’s challenge to Brazil
The fact that Eduardo Bolsonaro is in Texas has given Washington direct access to Brazilian politics, and his meetings at the US State Department have raised questions about what the Bolsonaro clan is promising the U.S. in case they are elected.
For Marco Rubio, the fact that the Bolsonaro family has become so open is highly advantageous. It aligns perfectly with Washington’s wider initiative to strengthen ties with conservative and far-right governments throughout Latin America. Rubio himself made this strategic assessment clear two months ago: “Brazil is our next challenge.”
Brazil is not just another nation in Washington’s regional strategy since it is the largest country in Latin America, one of the biggest economies in the world, a member of the BRICS and a country with significant diplomatic influence. If Brazil were firmly aligned with Trump’s administration in case of Bolsonaro’s son victory, the regional balance would be altered, while if it pursued strategic autonomy, in case of Lula’s victory, it would complicate that balance.
The return of multilateralism
The other major issue in question is multilateralism.
Brazil’s international standing suffered a sharp decline during Jair Bolsonaro’s term in office from 2019 to 2022. Instead of being actively involved in important multilateral negotiations, Brasília became much less engaged and is no longer the significant partner it had usually been, especially in the areas of climate change, environmental diplomacy and Global South agendas.
From 2023, Lula has deliberately reversed that course.
Brazil has returned to the centre of international diplomacy, presenting itself once again as a country capable of talking to Washington – although being more difficult – Beijing, Moscow, Brussels and the Global South simultaneously. This is not simply a question of diplomatic prestige. For Brazil, multilateralism is also a mechanism for protecting sovereignty: the more decisions are negotiated collectively, the less room there is for any single great power to dictate the rules.
A Bolsonaro government closely aligned with Trump would move Brazil in the opposite direction again.
The security paradox
Public security is another front—perhaps even the most paradoxical one.
Security has long been one of the strongest political themes of the Latin American right and extreme right – even vigilante justice and death squads are acceptable for most of them. Yet, the Bolsonaro family has never presented a comprehensive public-security project capable of addressing the structural power of organised crime.
Jair Bolsonaro spent 27 years as a federal deputy after leaving the Army following disciplinary problems. He had been expelled from the Army for insubordination and terrorism plans. He intended to blow up a water supply pipeline and to explode bombs in Army premises because of a low rate of salary increase. But he revealed his plans to the weekly magazine Veja beforehand. Later, the Army Chief requested that his sentence be reviewed to avoid bad publicity for the Army.
Nonetheless, his supporters have long portrayed him as a defender of law and order. Yet during his presidency, one of the principal responses to violence was the loosening of restrictions on firearms. The logic was straightforward: give more citizens access to guns so that they can defend themselves, instead of coming up with a logically sound security policy.
The consequences are now a topic in the political discussion, and a great deal of firearms has later gone into the hands of organised criminal groups.
The contradiction is even more evident when you look at the Bolsonaro family’s own history.
After the assassination of Rio de Janeiro councillor and activist Marielle Franco, one of the alleged perpetrators reportedly went to the condominium where Jair Bolsonaro lived and, according to the condominium doorman, asked for him. In a later version to the police, the doorman denied it.
Flávio Bolsonaro also employed the mother and sister of Adriano da Nóbrega, a former police officer accused of involvement with Rio’s organised crime networks and linked to the Marielle case, as legislative aides. Nóbrega was decorated for bravery by Flávio Bolsonaro at the Rio de Janeiro State Legislative Assembly. Later, Nóbrega was killed by the police while he was in hiding, in circumstances that generated further controversy and speculation about a possible silencing — the elimination of someone who could expose others.
The fact that these and other connections with organised crime exist does not, in itself, imply that the Bolsonaro family is criminally responsible. Nevertheless, they do raise issues that cannot be ignored when the same political family positions itself as Brazil’s champion in the struggle against organised crime.
Washington and the organised-crime question
There is another contradiction.
The Trump administration considers the struggle against organised crime and drug trafficking to be one of its main security priorities in the Americas. However, from Brazil’s point of view, Washington has not taken any steps to address the actual channels through which organised crime operates.
It was reported that Brazilian diplomacy has expressed concerns that the bilateral cooperation arrangements are not now operating as they used to. The Brazilian government has asked for the return of people who have been convicted or are under investigation in Brazil but have taken refuge in the United States, including individuals linked to the organisation of the attempted coup and those associated with the major tax-evasion scandals.
Further, Brazil has been requesting Washington to make it more difficult for heavy firearms smuggled from the US into the criminal networks in Brazil, but with no results. This is also a demand from Mexico.
This has led to the view in Brazil that Washington’s campaign against organised crime is selective and politically biased, and much less willing to act when cooperation would involve taking action against criminals who operate through US territory or financial systems.
What happens if Bolsonaro loses?
There remains one last question concerning the election: what happens if Flávio Bolsonaro loses by a narrow margin?
The possibility of a contested result is particularly serious in an election in which the two leading candidates are separated by only a few percentage points. Brazil has already experienced the consequences of political movements refusing to accept electoral defeat.
The danger could be greater if the Trump administration chose to fail to recognise or openly doubt the Brazilian result.
It would provide Bolsonaro’s team with an international platform from which to question the legitimacy of the election and could thus offer another opportunity for US interference in Brazilian politics or, in the best-case scenario, make Lula’s possible next term a weak government, challenged from the inside and outside.
Ricardo Martins – Doctor of Sociology, specialist in European and international politics as well as geopolitics
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