As one of Brazil’s most bitterly fought election campaigns draws to a close, far-right president Jair Bolsonaro and his challenger, veteran leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, agree on one thing: the future of one of the world’s largest democracies is at stake.
Lula, who was president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010, leads a broad coalition of the centre and left that has united behind the idea that a second term for Bolsonaro would do irreversible damage to the country’s institutions and spur a slide towards strongman rule.
For Bolsonaro and his conservative supporters in agribusiness, the evangelical churches and the army and police, a Lula victory would set Brazil on the path towards the style of socialism in Cuba or Venezuela and erode traditional values.