Jair Bolsonaro

A new poll shows Lula leading Bolsonaro, but the gap has closed ahead of Brazil’s high-stakes presidential election.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has retained his lead over right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro ahead of October’s election, according to a new poll.

A Quaest survey published on Friday found Lula would take 43 percent of the vote in a simulated run-off, against 40 percent for Bolsonaro, effectively a statistical tie given the poll’s two-point margin of error.

The result marks a narrowing from an earlier Quaest poll on August 5, which had put Lula ahead by a wider five-point margin, 44 percent to 39 percent.

In a first-round scenario, Lula leads more comfortably with 38 percent, followed by Bolsonaro at 31 percent. Three other candidates trail far behind: Renan Santos and Ronaldo Caiado each polled at 4 percent, and Romeu Zema at 2 percent.

Under Brazilian electoral rules, if no candidate secures more than half the valid votes in the first round, the top two finishers advance to a run-off.

Flavio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, has emerged as the standard-bearer for Brazil’s right after his father was barred from running in the election.

The elder Bolsonaro was ruled ineligible for office after Brazil’s top electoral court found he had abused his power while in office. He was later convicted separately over a plot to overturn his 2022 election loss to Lula.

The poll, conducted by Quaest between August 10 and 13, surveyed 2,004 people and was commissioned by the Brazilian media group Globo.

Lula launched his re-election bid on August 2 at the Workers’ Party convention in Sao Paulo, casting himself as a defender of Brazilian “sovereignty” as pressure from the administration of United States President Donald Trump looms over the race.

He called for increased defence spending and pledged to shield Brazil’s reserves of rare earths and other critical minerals from foreign control. “I want to be prepared, so that no one invades this country,” he said.

He warned that China, the US and France would not get access to Brazil’s mineral wealth without respecting the country’s sovereignty. He also told the convention: “In Brazil, we do not accept anyone sticking their nose where it does not belong.”

Trump has maintained close ties with the Bolsonaros. In June, Lula warned Trump not to interfere in the presidential race.

“Don’t meddle in the Brazilian elections, because the Brazilian elections are a Brazilian problem, just as American elections are their business, not mine,” Lula said.

With the race tightening two months out from the vote, the results so far have shown a competitive presidential race, even as Lula continues to hold a narrow structural advantage heading into the final stretch of the campaign.

Aug. 8 (UPI) — Former President Jair Bolsonaro will not be allowed to see his sons on Brazilian Father’s Day this Sunday, the country’s top court ruled.

Due to his health, Bolsonaro has been under house arrest in Brasilia since March while serving a 27-year sentence for a coup attempt.

Last month he was placed under a stricter regimen after he breached conditions of his house arrest.

The former president is not allowed to receive visits for 30 days, except by his medical and legal teams.

Bolsonaro’s defense attorneys on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court for special permission, calling it a “strictly humanitarian and family-related” visit for Father’s Day, which Brazil celebrates on the second Sunday in August.

“This is a unique date on the Brazilian calendar, and its observance, even for a brief period and under whatever conditions Your Honor may deem appropriate, would preserve family ties and an important aspect of the relationship between father and children,” the former president’s defense attorneys wrote to the Supreme Court, Gazeta do Povo reported.

But Brazil’s top court on Saturday denied Bolsonaro’s request to host sons Jair Renan, Carlos and Flavio, G1 reported. His fourth son, former Rep. Eduardo Bolsonaro, is living in the United States and was not included in the request.

Last month, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes barred Bolsonaro from receiving any visits of a “political-electoral” nature until after Brazil’s general elections in October.

The restrictions came after Bolsonaro wrote a political letter in support of his son, Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro, despite his sentence barring him from participating in national politics.

The younger Bolsonaro, who disseminated the letter on social media, is running against President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

“They took away his freedom,” Flavio Bolsonaro wrote on X. “Now they want to take away even a father’s right to hug his children.”

Bolsonaro’s defense lawyers argued in court he was unaware that his son would divulge his writing on social media.

But the court disagreed.

“The letter — written and personally signed by Jair Messias Bolsonaro — was addressed ‘to the Brazilian people,’ demonstrating that it was not of a private nature but rather intended for political and electoral purposes, with dissemination to the general public, using Flavio Nantes Bolsonaro as an intermediary, or in his own words, as his ‘spokesperson,'” Moraes wrote in his decision, G1 reported.

“The text of the ‘Letter to the Brazilian People,’ therefore, clearly shows that Jair Messias Bolsonaro intended to communicate with his political supporters through his son’s social media accounts,” the justice added.

As a result of the restriction, he was also denied a visit by Argentinian President Javier Milei, who in July visited the country in support of Flavio Bolsonaro’s candidature.

The announcement comes as Lula warns of foreign interference and polls show a tightening presidential race.

Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has named conservative Congressman Alfredo Gaspar as his running mate, ending weeks of speculation over who would join his presidential ticket in October’s election against incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The announcement on Wednesday also highlighted the challenges facing Bolsonaro’s campaign, which has struggled to build alliances beyond his own Liberal Party and failed in an effort to recruit a woman to the ticket in hopes of broadening its appeal.

Gaspar, 55, has represented the northeastern state of Alagoas in Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies since 2023 and served as its public security secretary.

Accepting the nomination, he described himself as “a simple person from the northeast” whose life had been defined by “hard work and honour”, saying he would work alongside Bolsonaro “to transform Brazil into a fair and decent place”.

Gaspar led a congressional investigation into Brazil’s National Social Security Institute (INSS), the agency that oversees the country’s public pension and social security system. Fabio Luis Lula da Silva, the president’s son, is under investigation over allegations that he received improper payments linked to an alleged pension fraud scheme involving that agency.

Political analyst Lucas de Aragao, a partner at consultancy Arko Advice, said the choice was surprising but gave Bolsonaro someone well-placed to attack Lula on an issue that has become politically sensitive.

“He has the authority to deal with an issue that is uncomfortable for Lula. He also speaks extensively about public security,” Aragao said.

Gaspar emerged as the Liberal Party’s preferred choice after several higher-profile figures courted by Bolsonaro, including Senator Tereza Cristina of the Progressive Party and former Caixa Economica Federal chief Daniella Marques of the Republicanos, failed to get their own parties to support them in joining the ticket.

Bolsonaro, the son of former far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, has struggled to expand his coalition, with several centre-right parties choosing to either back Lula’s broader coalition or remain neutral in the election in hopes of maximising their representation in Congress and appealing to anti-Bolsonaro voters in the country’s northeast.

A Quaest survey published on Wednesday found Lula leading Bolsonaro 44 percent to 39 percent in a simulated run-off, down from an eight-point lead in mid-July. In a first-round scenario, Lula was on 39 percent support to Bolsonaro’s 30 percent. If no candidate wins more than half the valid votes in the first round, the top two candidates advance to a run-off.

Launching his re-election campaign on Sunday, Lula cast the October vote as a battle to defend Brazil’s sovereignty amid growing concerns over foreign influence.

“Too many people are poking their fingers into our business. Too many people are interfering in our land. And that is going to stop,” he told supporters.

In July, Brazil denied visas to two US State Department officials who Lula said were being sent to “meddle” in the elections.

The diplomatic rift deepened on Tuesday, when the Trump administration said it was temporarily revoking the visa of Brazil’s ambassador to Washington in response to Brasilia withholding approval for Trump’s ambassadorial nominee.

Lula has pointed to those tensions, along with Trump’s public support for Flavio Bolsonaro and US tariffs imposed on Brazilian goods, as evidence that Brazil’s sovereignty is under pressure.

“As long as I’m president, no one from outside will interfere in Brazilian elections,” Lula said on Wednesday.

July 26 (UPI) — Brazil’s foreign ministry has summoned Argentina’s ambassador after inflammatory remarks delivered by Argentinian President Javier Milei about Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over the weekend.

Argentinian diplomat Julio Bitelli must go to Brasilia on Sunday or early Monday to meet with Brazilian leaders in wake of Milei’s harsh attacks on Lula during the national convention of Brazil’s Liberal Party, or PL, in São Paulo on Saturday, diplomatic sources told the O Globo newspaper.

Milei used his speech to denounce what he called the “tragedy of socialism” in Latin America, singling out the Lula and Minister Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Federal Court for intense criticism while praising PL presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro.

The Argentine leader hailed Bolsonaro as the only candidate who can stop Lula, saying that “there is no one else capable of stopping Lula” and his effect on the country or confronting criminal and drug trafficking organizations.

“Do not allow your future to be stolen. We are counting on you, Flavio, to stop this socialist garbage,” said Milei.

The Argentinian leader also slammed de Moraes for prohibiting him from visiting former president Jair Bolsonaro in a Brasilia prison where the ex-president is serving a 27-year prison sentence for leading a 2022 coup attempt against Lula.

“I was not allowed to visit my unjustly imprisoned friend,” said Milei, a declared ally of the Bolsonaro family.

Flavio Bolsonaro, son of the imprisoned former president, launched his formal bid challenging Lula at the PL convention, declaring, “This the beginning of the toughest battles of our life. A fight between good and evil.”

Reactions to Milei’s attacks reverberated throughout Brazil in Sunday.

Workers’ Party president Edinho Silva said the Argentine leader had crossed a line with the attacks.

“No public authority in Brazil is above criticism, as long as it is made in the appropriate manner and at the right time,” he said in a social media post. “However, it is unacceptable for a foreign head of state to come to our country and address its constitutional powers in disrespectful terms.”

It is no surprise that the current president of Argentina “behaves in this way,” he added. “After all, there are not a few recent situations in which he has shown himself not up to the office he holds.”

Brazilian Supreme Court President Luiz Edson Fachin, meanwhile, similarly pushed back, reaffirming the autonomy of the country’s judiciary.

Right-wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro attracts foreign support, but struggles in polls ahead of matchup with President Lula.

Flavio Bolsonaro has inaugurated the official beginning of his Brazilian presidential campaign, touting support from right-wing figures such as Argentinian President Javier Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro and long considered the presumptive candidate of Brazil’s political right, launched his formal bid challenging President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Saturday.

“This is more than a party convention,” Bolsonaro said in remarks to his father’s Liberal Party.

“This is the beginning of the toughest battles of our life. A fight between good and evil.”

Recent polls have shown Bolsonaro trailing the left-wing Lula, as his bid for the presidency struggles to right itself after a number of setbacks and scandals.

While Saturday’s event included endorsement remarks from right-wing heavyweights such as Milei and Netanyahu, few prominent Brazilian politicians were in attendance.

Centre-right parties have largely kept their distance, and Flavio’s father – currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for a coup attempt following his loss to Lula in 2022 – was present at the convention only in the form of a video made with AI.

Milei delivered ‌a fiery speech criticising Lula and declaring that Bolsonaro can “save” Brazil from socialism.

The Argentinian president flew to Brazil the night before the event and met on Saturday with Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas.

“We will continue offering our testimony everywhere against the lies of socialism,” Milei said.

Netanyahu offered support via a short video message.

“Flavio, my friend, I want to congratulate you on the official launching of your campaign,” Netanyahu said in the recording, according to the Brazilian outlet Metropoles. “You’re a great champion of Brazil, you’re a great champion of the friendship between our peoples.”

Lula’s Workers Party is set to hold its own convention on August 2, confirming the 80-year-old president’s re-election bid.

Bolsonaro and his allies have also suffered from criticisms that they have tried to use their ties to the administration of US President Donald Trump to boost his campaign, inviting US intervention in a variety of issues that many Brazilians see as a form of foreign meddling.

Like his father, Flavio has also raised alarm by repeating false claims about the reliability of Brazil’s election infrastructure, seen as a pretext for possible efforts to deny the legitimacy of the voting process in the event of a loss to Lula.

The AFP news agency reported on Saturday that Brazil had denied visas to a pair of Trump administration officials who sought to meet with the country’s election authorities to discuss “freedom of expression related to the elections”.

July 18 (UPI) — Brazil’s top court on Saturday denied a request from former President Jair Bolsonaro to be visited by Argentinian President Javier Milei while under house arrest.

The attempted visit by Milei, a political ally of the far-right Bolsonaro, was part of a campaign to drum up political support for the son of the former president, who is running against leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence for a coup attempt but has been in his home in Brasilia since March due to his health condition.

He was already barred from participating in national politics as part of his sentence.

But Bolsonaro was placed under further restrictions on Friday for breaching conditions of his house arrest, after he wrote a political letter supporting his son’s candidature for president.

The son, right-wing state Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro, then showed the endorsement letter during a live stream on social media.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes barred Bolsonaro from receiving any visits of a “political-electoral” nature until after Brazil’s general elections in October.

Bolsonaro’s defense lawyers argued in court he was unaware that his son would divulge his writing on social media, though the former president titled the text “letter to the Brazilian people.”

“The letter — written and personally signed by Jair Messias Bolsonaro — was addressed ‘to the Brazilian people,’ demonstrating that it was not of a private nature but rather intended for political and electoral purposes, with dissemination to the general public, using Flavio Nantes Bolsonaro as an intermediary, or in his own words, as his ‘spokesperson,'” Moraes wrote in his decision, G1 reported.

“The text of the ‘Letter to the Brazilian People,’ therefore, clearly shows that Jair Messias Bolsonaro intended to communicate with his political supporters through his son’s social media accounts,” the justice added.

Bolsonaro is now barred from receiving visits for 30 days, except by his medical and legal teams.

He is also not allowed to be visited by his son for 90 days.

July 11 (UPI) — Deforestation of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has fallen to its lowest levels in more than a decade, officials said this week.

Satellite surveys show a 37% decrease in the number of trees felled in the world’s largest rainforest in the past year compared to the previous one, according to the National Space Research Institute (INPE).

This is the lowest level of Amazon deforestation since 2014, data published on Friday shows.

“It’s a solid result, stemming from government actions to protect the forest and combat environmental crime,” said executive secretary Márcio Astrini, of the Brazilian environmental collective Observatório do Clima.

“The figures are excellent and deserve to be celebrated,” Astrini told G1.

The Amazon rainforest is one of the world’s most important climate regulators, scientists and experts have said.

Deforestation of the Amazon in Brazil reached a 15-year high in 2021 under former President Jair Bolsonaro, whose government cut environmental protections and enforcement of conservation laws.

Brazil’s current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has vowed to eradicate illegal deforestation by 2030.

“It is a commitment — otherwise, I will have failed,” Lula told reporters during an event in Belém do Pará, a city known as the metropolis of the Amazon.

President Lula accuses Jair Bolsonaro’s son, now a presidential hopeful, of helping triggered proposed US tariffs.

Brazilian presidential hopeful Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, is asking the Trump administration to delay proposed tariffs on Brazilian goods until after October’s election, as he tries to counter allegations from President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that his family helped bring them about.

The Trump administration proposed the 25 percent tariffs in June, citing alleged trade violations including illegal deforestation and what it called unfair electronic payment practices, catching Brazil’s government by surprise. Lula had said relations were improving after a White House meeting with Trump in May.

The announcement came shortly after Bolsonaro met senior US officials in Washington, prompting accusations back home that he had invited US pressure on Brazil, with Lula accusing the right-wing senator of lobbying Washington to impose the tariffs.

He has since doubled down on those accusations, saying in a social media post last week, “the origin of all this was motivated by the Bolsonaro family itself” and that Bolsonaro’s request to delay the tariffs until after the election was “yet another act of treason against the Fatherland”.

Bolsonaro rejects the allegation, arguing instead that it’s Lula who would gain a political advantage if the tariffs were imposed.

“New US tariffs on Brazilian products would hand the current Brazilian government precisely the political victory it has been engineering,” Bolsonaro wrote in a submission to the Office of the US Trade Representative.

Brazilian officials have spent months trying to persuade Washington not to move ahead with the tariffs. But Bolsonaro says the government hasn’t gone far enough to find common ground with the US and is calling for a 180-day delay before any final decision is made.

“Brazil holds general elections in October 2026, and the political landscape that determines the viability of any negotiated resolution will be redefined within roughly ninety days,” he wrote.

So far, there is little sign his efforts are paying off. In a response to a letter Bolsonaro sent last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US officials still had “substantial differences” with Brazil over the issues they say justify the proposed tariffs.

The dispute has left Brazilians split over who’s telling the truth. A Quaest poll published last month found 47 percent of Brazilians agreed with Lula’s claim that Bolsonaro had encouraged the United States to impose tariffs, while 35 percent agreed with Bolsonaro that he had tried to stop them.

Washington has until July 15 to decide whether to impose the tariffs which, if approved, would still exempt beef, coffee, rare earth minerals and aircraft parts. They would come on top of the tariffs Trump imposed last year over what he described as a “witch hunt” against Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted months later.

Bolsonaro has made Brazil’s relationship with the United States a central part of his campaign, as Trump has taken a more active role in Latin American politics. That has included the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas and backing right-wing candidates across the region, including Abelardo De La Espriella, who narrowly won Colombia’s presidential election last month.

A panel on the Brazilian Supreme Court has voted to convict Eduardo Bolsonaro of lobbying the United States to interfere in the trial of his father, former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro.

On Tuesday, three of the four justices on the panel voted in favour of conviction, with one remaining justice yet to vote.

They determined that Eduardo Bolsonaro’s actions amounted to coercion against Brazil’s justice system and sentenced him to four years and two months in prison.

“It wasn’t merely an expression of opinion or a political stance, but rather conduct that clearly threatened Brazilian authorities and Brazilian citizens themselves,” Justice Cristiano Zanin said, calling Eduardo Bolsonaro’s actions “illegitimate and criminal”.

The conviction is the latest legal setback for the Bolsonaro family, which remains a dominant force on Brazil’s political right.

Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year prison sentence for his efforts to remain in power after losing the country’s 2022 election.

Prosecutors described his actions as an attempted coup. Bolsonaro and his family have portrayed the trial as a political witch-hunt.

The ex-president’s third son and a member of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Bolsonaro has been active in his father’s defence.

In March 2025, he pledged that he would move to the US full time to “focus 100 percent” of his energy on “a single cause”: freeing his father.

Prosecutors accused him of mounting an illegal campaign to court US President Donald Trump and use foreign influence to pressure Brazilian officials to drop the case against Jair Bolsonaro.

Trump, an ally of Bolsonaro, had likewise tried to remain in office despite his loss in the 2020 election and has accused Brazilian officials of persecuting right-wing voices like Bolsonaro.

In July 2025, Trump issued a letter announcing 50 percent tariffs on certain Brazilian products, citing Jair Bolsonaro’s trial, specifically, as a reason.

“This Trial should not be taking place,” Trump wrote at the time. “It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY.”

Trump also issued an executive order sanctioning one of the Brazilian Supreme Court justices involved in the Bolsonaro case, Alexandre de Moraes, on the basis that he worked to “target political opponents” and “suppress dissent”.

He called de Moraes a “threat” to the US, and his administration later expanded the sanctions to include the justice’s family members, as well as other Brazilian judicial officials.

Brazil’s current president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has denounced those actions as an attempt to interfere in Brazil’s domestic affairs.

As relations with Lula grew more cordial, the Trump administration relaxed its tariffs against Brazil. In December, it also repealed the sanctions against de Moraes and his family.

Lula, meanwhile, visited the White House in May and praised what he described as a productive meeting with his US counterpart.

But it remains unclear what role Trump may seek to play in Brazil’s upcoming presidential elections.

The left-wing Lula is campaigning for a fourth term, and he is likely to face his stiffest competition from Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.

A CNT/MDA poll released on Tuesday projected that Lula would receive 49.3 percent of the vote in a run-off election against the senator’s 40.2 percent.

Flavio Bolsonaro has faced his own legal trouble in recent months, with police opening a probe in April into whether he defamed Lula. His connections to a disgraced banker have also raised media scrutiny.

Jair Bolsonaro, meanwhile, faced questions this week about the presence of a firearm in his home in Brasilia, where he is serving three months of his sentence on medical grounds.

Justice de Moraes likewise asked the elder Bolsonaro’s legal team to explain the presence of the weapon, which police discovered during a routine inspection on Monday.

A security guard for Bolsonaro initially said the 9mm Glock pistol was his own, but it was later revealed to be the ex-president’s.

De Moraes gave Bolsonaro’s legal team 24 hours to explain why “the convicted man kept a firearm at home”.