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The final round of Brazil’s presidential election takes place on Sunday, October 25. Sunday’s run-off pits the veteran incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is being challenged by right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro had defeated Lula in the first round of voting on October 4 by a narrow margin, but did not meet the 50% of valid votes criteria to be declared the winner. That has triggered Sunday’s run off.

In this interview, Professor Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos talks about the issues at stake in this election, why it is important for Brazil and beyond, and what explains the rise of Bolsonarism.

Santos is Latin American Studies Professor at Unifesp and Prolam-USP, São Paulo, Brazil. He is the author of Power and Impotence: A history of South America under progressivism (Haymarket: 2020); coeditor of The Radical Right: Politics of Hate on the Margins of Global Capital (Brill: 2021); co-author of Southern Interregnum: Remaking hegemony in Brazil, India, China and South Africa (MUP: 2025); among other books.

Many say that something far greater than a mere change of government is at stake in the October 25 elections. What is your view?

The election on October 25 is not a contest between the left and the right. It is a contest between preserving what we have as a country and accelerating its destruction. Lula will not solve Brazil’s problems, but he will seek to contain them. Flávio Bolsonaro embodies the most violent tendencies of Brazilian capitalism. He is supported by those who profit from environmental destruction and with the destruction of the social fabric, which includes the police, thieves, militia members, evangelicals, sports betting, as well as sectors of finance capital. His platform combines the militarisation of El Salvador with the anarcho-capitalism of Argentina, wrapped up in conservative evangelical rhetoric that emulates Trump and Israel.

Nor will the election on October 25 merely determine the country’s course for the next four years. There is one key difference between Bolsonarism and other radical right-wing movements: it is an armed power regime. It will be a government of gunmen and........

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