They went into the first round of Brazil’s presidential election full of optimism. They were enormously confident that the veteran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would secure a first-round victory. In fact, even an outright win did not seem far-fetched to them. But election night on October 4 ended in colossal disappointment for 23-year-old Rhian Silva, for Julia de Oliveira Szöke, 25, both history students, and for the Brazilian left as a whole. Shocked, Silva allowed himself only a brief period of mourning before springing into action after Lula called for mass mobilization.

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Llegaron optimistas a la primera vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales en Brasil. Con enorme confianza en que el veterano Lula lograría la victoria parcial. Es más, el triunfo definitivo tampoco les sonaba descabellado. Pero la noche electoral del 4 de octubre acabó en disgusto colosal para Rhian Silva, de 23 años, para Julia de Oliveira Szöke, de 25, estudiantes de Historia, y para toda la izquierda brasileña. Conmocionada, hizo un luto breve y se puso en acción tras un llamamiento de Lula a la movilización general. “Lo primero que nosotros hicimos fue decirnos: ‘No podemos caer en el pánico o la desesperación. Quedan casi tres semanas. Vamos a por la remontada”, recordaba Silva el miércoles, en el campus de la Universidad de São Paulo (USP), pública, una de las mejores de América Latina.

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While the keynote speaker is closing the rally, her own fans are waiting for her at the back exit. Dozens of young people press onto the road, cell phones in hand. As she appears among the crowd, pandemonium breaks out. There are excited screams — everyone wants a selfie. The lawmaker walks confidently on stiletto heels. Escorted by three bodyguards, her straight, caramel-colored hair stands out in the throng. She twists her body to pose with this person and that one. She smiles. She advances slowly, head held high, toward the black car, followed by her own cameraman. “Erika, Erika, Erika…,” they chant. Erika Hilton, 33, steps into the armored vehicle and disappears into this drizzly São Paulo night.

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El humor del electorado brasileño oscila levemente a medida que se aproxima la hora de la verdad —el domingo, elecciones presidenciales— sin salir o sin alejarse mucho del empate técnico. La encuesta más reciente muestra este miércoles al senador Flávio Bolsonaro y al presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva empatados dentro del margen de error, que es de dos puntos. El derechista saca un 45%, tras caer un punto en la última semana, frente al 44% de Lula, que se mantiene. El sondeo de Quaest, encargado por Globo y divulgado este miércoles, también detecta un ligero incremento de indecisos entre las mujeres, los electores independientes (ni Lula ni Bolsonaro) y los que reciben Bolsa Familia, una ayuda recién aumentada. El debate previsto para el viernes, el segundo entre ambos, puede ser decisivo.

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Twenty million families living in poverty will begin receiving extra cash this week, just days before the runoff in Brazil’s closely contested presidential election. The 15% increase in payments from Bolsa Família (the Workers Party’s flagship anti-poverty program) that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced in September, shortly before the first round of voting, is reaching the pockets of the neediest just ahead of Sunday’s runoff vote.

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La artista brasileña Anna Bella Geiger (Río de Janeiro, 1933) ha sido galardonada con el Premio Velázquez de las Artes Plásticas, dotado con 100.000 euros y otorgado por el Ministerio de Cultura español. El jurado ha destacado su “actitud de experimentación permanente que le ha llevado a trabajar desde múltiples disciplinas y lenguajes, así como un compromiso pedagógico que ha generado un impacto fundamental en distintas generaciones”. Asimismo, considera que “durante sus 70 años de trayectoria ha cuestionado y sigue cuestionando los modos convencionales de validación artística”.

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Veinte millones de familias acuciadas por la pobreza empezaron a recibir esta semana, la última antes de las elecciones presidenciales, un dinero extra. El aumento del 15% en la cuantía de Bolsa Familia que el presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva anunció en septiembre, poco antes de la primera vuelta, llega al bolsillo de los más necesitados justo antes de los comicios del domingo. El incremento de la paga que garantiza lo más básico a los brasileños más vulnerables es la principal medida del amplio paquete de ayudas, subsidios y aumentos que el líder de la izquierda brasileña promete a un electorado partido en dos mitades casi exactas con pocos indecisos. Lula y el senador Flávio Bolsonaro llegan al sprint final en empate técnico.

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Al Tribunal Superior Electoral de Brasil se le está acabando la paciencia con el gigante tecnológico Meta y los inescrutables entresijos de su funcionamiento. Un juez del TSE le ha dado 24 horas a la tecnológica propietaria de Instagram, WhatsApp y Facebook para que demuestre al tribunal que sus algoritmos y su inteligencia artificial dan un trato igual a los dos candidatos, al presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, del izquierdista Partido de los Trabajadores, y al senador Flávio Bolsonaro, del derechista Partido Liberal. La decisión judicial fue dictada el domingo por la noche cuando los presidenciables protagonizaban su primer debate.

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With just over a week to go until Brazil’s closely contested presidential election, the picture remains much the same as it has for months: a dead heat.

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The inauguration in Brazil includes a moment of enormous symbolism that comes courtesy of the architect Óscar Niemeyer. The elected head of state arrives at the Praça dos Três Poderes and ascends to power on foot, walking up the ramp that leads into Planalto Palace. “In 2027, I will climb the ramp with my father,” Flávio Bolsonaro repeatedly promised during the presidential campaign; he is now the favorite to win the October 25 runoff after attracting 47% of the vote last Sunday over incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s 45%. Flávio knows that his supporters prefer the original Bolsonaro to the copy. He has also declared that, if he defeats President Lula on October 25, his first move will be to pardon Jair Messias Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting a coup.

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Right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, who hopes to win Brazil’s presidential election before the end of the month, announced Tuesday that he intends to leverage the large parliamentary bloc won by his party, the Liberal Party (PL), in Sunday’s vote to push through deep changes. The son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup against President Lula’s government, said at a campaign event in Goiânia, near Brasília, that he wants to use the PL’s legislative strength to appoint the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and to “reform the Constitution, to redemocratize the country, so that institutions once again respect the Constitution.”

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The Bolsonaro family tree can be very confusing, so a guide is often helpful. “God, homeland, family and liberty” is the slogan that sums up the idea of Brazil put forward by the clan in recent years. The most radical Bolsonarists interpret the term “family” in the most traditional sense — father, mother, children and perhaps a pet — even though millions of Brazilians do not fit that model. Not even Jair Messias Bolsonaro, 71, the former military officer who restored pride and visibility to Brazil’s far right. After three marriages and two divorces, the patriarch formed a family with five children (four adult men, all politicians, and one teenager), a political clan that also includes his current wife, a family shaken by scandals and endless internal tensions. Last Sunday, the former president’s eldest son, Flávio Bolsonaro, won the first round of the election against incumbent President Lula, and five Bolsonaros won parliamentary seats. Here is a guide to help keep track.

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Lula, who was born in 1945 in a small town in the interior of the state of Pernambuco, defied the odds by surviving hunger and disease as a baby — a fate that befell so many of his compatriots in those same circumstances. Now he dreams of defying the odds, and history, once again. Never since Brazil restored democracy in 1985 has anyone who finished second in the first round of the presidential election gone on to win the final vote. President Lula da Silva, who on Sunday secured 45% of the vote compared to Flávio Bolsonaro’s 47%, is devising a strategy to attract centrist voters and mobilize the masses of abstainers, with a special focus on those aged over 70. He has three weeks to make what now sounds like nothing short of a miracle a reality.

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The ultraconservative wave sweeping across Latin America scored a crucial victory in Brazil on Sunday, one that appears likely to become definitive in three weeks’ time.

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Brasilia, 2016: Congressman Jair Messias Bolsonaro votes in favor of impeaching left-wing President Dilma Rousseff. And he dedicates his vote to the military officer who tortured her during the dictatorship (1964-1985), when she was a guerrilla fighter.

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Never before have so many Brazilians held a job, but never have so many families — eight out of 10 — been strangled by debt. Paying it off consumes a third of household budgets in Latin America’s largest economy. And it is there that much of the discontent weighing on Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s electoral prospects is born. His 2022 promise that, with him in power, the glorious days of the picanha, the grilled meat, the Sunday barbecue, would return remains a dream for most. For his compatriots, the cost of living is too high. Paying the bills is often impossible, even though the president insists unemployment is at a historic low (5.3%), inequality is falling, and inflation is under control.

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A fake story, with the Virgin of Aparecida, patron saint of Brazil, as an unwitting protagonist, has sparked a major controversy and poisoned the final stretch of the electoral campaign in Brazil. The contention, which harms Bolsonarismo, grew until it drew the direct intervention of the two leading candidates — President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro — the Bishops’ Conference, and the Supreme Court. Since Thursday night there have been statements, official notes, mutual accusations, and conflicting judicial rulings. The falsehood, which continues to circulate on social media, could affect an election that promises to be extremely close.

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