Exclusive: Former Brazilian environment minister warns of destruction as far-right scion favourite to become president

The former Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva has said that if Flávio Bolsonaro becomes president he will seek to finish the “perverse project” of rampant rainforest destruction initiated by his jailed far-right father.

The Amazon was thrown into chaos during Jair Bolsonaro’s 2019-2022 presidency, when Brazil’s environment and Indigenous protection agencies were gutted and environmental criminals ran riot, causing surges in deforestation and violence.

After a surprise first-round victory, critics suggest son of disgraced ex-president could seek to continue his father’s authoritarian project

• Flávio’s surprise first-round win highlights rapid rise of Brazil’s House of Bolsonaro

Flávio Bolsonaro, the far-right frontrunner to become Brazil’s next president, has vowed to “re-democratise” the South American country, increasing fears about a move into authoritarian rule if he wins power.

Brazil was re-democratised in the 1980s after a brutal 21-year dictatorship that Flávio’s father, the disgraced ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, has long praised.

Four members of disgraced ex-president Jair Bolsonaro’s family have been elected to office, most notably his wife and son Flávio, who won the first round of voting to be Brazil’s new president

The weekend’s elections in Brazil not only put Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Flávio Bolsonaro, in the lead in the presidential race, but also underscored how far the former president has come in building a political dynasty.

As his far-right senator son heads into a runoff against the leftist incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a sweeping far-right victory in congressional races also secured seats for Jair Bolsonaro’s wife, two of his sons and one of his brothers.

Progressive voters and supporters of incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva left reeling after far-right surge

Flávio Bolsonaro is in pole position to win Brazil’s presidential election, after a far-right tsunami propelled him to a shock first-round victory over the incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leaving progressive voters reeling.

The 45-year-old rightwing candidate received 56.1m votes to Lula’s 53.8m – 47.03% to 45.16% – meaning the 80-year-old leftwinger has a mountain to climb if he is to bounce back in the second round on 25 October. Never, since the return of democracy to Brazil in 1985, has the first-round runner-up managed to turn the game around and win the second ballot.

Far-right challenger and son of disgraced ex-president Jair Bolsonaro put in a stronger than expected showing, with Lula calling the result ‘unexpected’

Brazil’s presidential race will go to a second round after the far-right candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, beat the incumbent leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, but failed to secure the outright majority he needed to avoid a runoff.

With 99.9% of votes counted, the 45-year-old son of the disgraced former president, Jair Bolsonaro, had won 47%, meaning he will now face a 25 October showdown with his 80-year-old rival. Lula received 45.1%. Bolsonaro received 56.1m votes to Lula’s 53.8m.

Leftwing incumbent Lula trying to fight off close rival Flávio Bolsonaro, far-right son of jailed ex-president

The polls have closed in the first round of Brazil’s highly polarised and high-stakes presidential election that could change not only the direction of Latin America’s largest country but that of the entire region.

The election pits the leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term, against the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, an ally of Donald Trump and the son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup after his failed 2022 re-election attempt.

Sunday’s poll pits the leftist incumbent Lula against the son of a former far-right president convicted of staging a coup

• ‘No one disrespects Our Lady’: fears for Brazil’s patron saint grip country ahead of election

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.

“Everybody I’ve endorsed has won,” the US president said in New York to most of the leaders of the Shield of the Americas, an anti-drug cartel coalition of 15 countries governed by the right or far right.

President leads huge rally in Rio before election on Sunday seen as most important for decades

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has claimed he is the only thing standing in the way of far-right “fascists” reclaiming power, as he led a huge rally through the streets of Rio ahead of Sunday’s crunch election.

Speaking on the eve of the demonstration, the 80-year-old leftwinger said he had decided to seek a historic fourth term because he believed only he could prevent the family of his rightwing rival, Flávio Bolsonaro, returning to government.

Jorge Messias calls Guardian report ‘an important alert for Brazilian sovereignty’ as nation prepares to go to polls

Brazil’s attorney general has said foreign meddling in his country’s institutions and democracy “cannot be tolerated” after a Guardian report revealed how the Trump administration was pushing to direct funds to a campaign against the Brazilian supreme court.

Writing on X, Jorge Messias called the report “an important alert for Brazilian sovereignty”. “The information is especially serious in light of Brazil’s electoral process and the recent episodes of external pressure on our institutions,” Messias added.

Co-founder of independent website Tapajós de Fato said decision was made to protect journalists and their families

Four years ago, during Brazil’s last presidential election, the tyres were slashed on the pickup truck used for reporting by Tapajós de Fato, an independent journalism website in the Brazilian Amazon.

Days later, a cat’s severed head was left next to the car park, alongside a note bearing the name of one of the site’s founders, Marcos Wesley Pedroso, and a warning that he would be next.

Longtime friend tells of president’s obsession with social justice and fears for country’s future under another Bolsonaro presidency

On 1 January 2023, a few hours after being sworn in for his third stint as Brazil’s president, a ravenous Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sneaked away from a celebratory cocktail party packed with politicians and diplomats to grab a snack with one of his oldest friends.

“This is your penultimate term,” that friend, the Dominican theologian and writer Frei Betto, recalls telling Lula as the pair chewed the fat in a back room of the foreign ministry in Brasília.

A TV spot claims the US president is trying to sway October’s presidential vote in favour of Lula’s far-right opponents

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s presidential campaign has accused Donald Trump of wanting to “colonise” Brazil in order to capture its natural resources by meddling in next month’s presidential election.

The accusation came in a campaign advert that was published on social media on Thursday night by Lula’s team and will air on television on Friday amid growing fears over the impact alleged US interference could have on the vote.

Legislators sent letter to Marco Rubio saying US interference is weakening Brazil’s democratic institutions

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A group of 31 Democratic members of the US Congress has sent a letter to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, criticising the Trump administration over “an apparent effort to interfere with, and potentially undermine” Brazil’s elections.

Latin America’s largest country will hold the first round of its presidential election on 4 October, with polls showing a technical tie between the incumbent leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro.

Critics say moves from leftwing incumbent president are electorally motivated two weeks before Brazil’s elections

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has announced a 15% increase in the country’s main cash-transfer programme for poor families, as well as free weight-loss jabs, prompting criticism from opponents who say the moves are electorally motivated just two weeks before the presidential election.

On 4 October, the leftwing incumbent will face the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who has been gaining ground in recent weeks.

Scandal explodes as country’s election campaign peaks, with polls suggesting dead heat between candidates

Brazil’s supreme court has been thrust into what experts consider the greatest crisis since the return of democracy in the 1980s, as two rival judges lock horns on the eve of the presidential election with unpredictable consequences for Latin America’s largest democracy.

The politically charged dispute exploded into public view on Tuesday as judges traded insults and accusations during a heated supreme court hearing that was livestreamed into millions of Brazilian homes.

‘The doors that aren’t open to us in the rest of the city, we open for ourselves here,’ Maria Cristina de Sales says

Even at the age of nine, Maria Cristina de Sales knew exactly when to ask her mother’s colleagues at the slaughterhouse for a piece of the pig they were butchering: when they got close to the pork leg, her favourite part.

When she grew up, Sales followed the path of many others from Brazil’s deprived north-east and moved south in search of better work opportunities. She arrived in Rio de Janeiro and, unable to afford a home in tourist-heavy south zone, moved to a favela further north.

Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior describes 2022 meeting in new book as ex-leader’s son vies with Lula for presidency

The far-right populist Jair Bolsonaro was in his final days as Brazil’s president when, six weeks after losing the election and still refusing to recognise the result, he summoned the heads of the armed forces to a meeting.

The defence minister, Gen Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira, took out a document from a plastic folder and handed copies to the commanders of the navy, army and air force.

Abelardo De La Espriella posts video of himself with rows of body bags as performative populism continues to sweep Americas

Colombia’s hardline president, Abelardo De La Espriella, has provoked outrage after posting a video on social media in which he strides through rows of white body bags that he says contained the corpses of 23 “neutralised” guerrillas.

De La Espriella took power last month vowing “all-out war” against illegal armed groups and he published the footage on Thursday in an apparent attempt to show he was fulfilling that pledge.

Energy secretary Chris Wright denies US seeking to ‘take’ country’s oil, saying deal is ‘transformation’ of relations

The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, has denied Washington is seeking to commandeer huge quantities of Venezuelan oil, amid growing criticism of Donald Trump’s energy deal with the country’s interim leaders.

“Absolutely not,” Wright replied when asked by a CNBC journalist if the US was engaged in a “heavy-handed” attempt to “take” Venezuelan oil in violation of the South American country’s constitution.

Claims that Trump and Rubio are trying to influence result have parallels with CIA intervention 64 years ago

The year was 1962 and the Kennedy administration was desperate to swing Brazil’s congressional elections against its leftwing president, João Goulart, as a way of countering the supposed communist threat sweeping a region the US considered its back yard.

Historians say that in the lead-up to the vote, the CIA and the Department of State secretly channelled millions of dollars to opposition candidates and a group tasked with spreading rightwing propaganda and stirring up unrest.