Latin America

Trump says defeated presidential candidate, who faces investigation in Brazil, can stay in the US ‘as long as he wants’.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says President Donald Trump’s administration did not help Brazil’s defeated presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro flee the country for the United States after losing a run-off to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro arrived in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday, a day after the US Department of State said Bolsonaro and his family would be granted US visas after his October 25 election loss, which bucked a trend of conservative electoral wins in Latin America.

Bolsonaro is under investigation in Brazil for alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion, and before leaving, he had been ordered to surrender his passport because police deemed him a flight risk.

“We didn’t facilitate anything,” Rubio told reporters on Saturday in Atlanta, Georgia, where diplomats from the Group of 20 largest world economies were gathered.

“We had word that he had arrived in the United States. He had previously held a visa, and the president made a decision to allow him to enter the country,” Rubio said.

He added that the US government was not “involved directly in any of the moves that were made”.

Rubio also said he had seen Brazil’s foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, in Atlanta on Friday and Saturday and he expected to see Brazilian officials again in November in France during a foreign ministers meeting.

Separately, Trump, who had previously called Brazil’s election “rigged”, voiced sympathy for Bolsonaro and said he could stay in the US indefinitely.

“I think he got treated very shabbily, very shabbily, so he can stay here as long as he wants,” the president told reporters at his Florida residence on Saturday.

The Reuters news agency reported that Bolsonaro was admitted to the US under humanitarian parole, a status that typically lasts for one year.

Trump’s comments suggested relations between the Western Hemisphere’s two largest democracies may remain strained for some time.

After Bolsonaro’s run-off loss, he fled Brazil to the US via Argentina and Ecuador on a journey that some US media outlets reported was partly arranged with the help of Jason Miller, a White House official.

Bolsonaro has refused to concede the Brazilian election and called the results fraudulent without providing evidence.

Since arriving in the US, he has claimed to be the true “leader” of Brazil and said he left the country because he was a victim of “persecution”.

Brazil has summoned Argentina’s top diplomat in the country to answer questions about right-wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, who fled first to Argentina, then to the United States, after losing Sunday’s presidential election.

On Thursday, Brazil’s Foreign Ministry called in Argentina’s charge d’affaires, Maria Emilia Cortes, sources inside the government told the news agency Reuters.

Argentina’s Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno, however, has denied on social media that his government received a formal request for explanations regarding Bolsonaro’s decision to flee into Argentina late on Tuesday.

The circumstances surrounding Bolsonaro’s departure threaten to further strain relations between Brazil’s recently re-elected President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his Argentinian counterpart, libertarian Javier Milei.

After Sunday’s election, Bolsonaro was given a deadline to surrender his passports. Officials ordered him to remain in the country as part of an ongoing legal case.

He is part of an ongoing investigation into a money-laundering scheme, known as the Banco Master scandal.

Investigators are probing a multimillion-dollar payment Bolsonaro received from Banco Master’s former head, Daniel Vorcaro, allegedly to finance a film about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro.

The younger Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing and called the case politically motivated.

A senator since 2019, Bolsonaro ran this year as the right-wing presidential candidate for his father’s political movement, the Liberal Party.

But after advancing to the run-off, the senator fell short by more than 4 million votes. Lula won Sunday’s race with 51.8 percent of the vote, securing a historic fourth non-consecutive term.

Bolsonaro, however, has refused to concede, though the Liberal Party has acknowledged Lula’s victory.

Instead, he made an unsubstantiated allegation of electoral malfeasance, pointing to a Supreme Court decision to extend voting hours on Sunday.

Both candidates’ campaigns had requested extensions, though for different reasons: Bolsonaro’s camp pointed to inclement weather delaying voters in parts of Brazil, while Lula’s party raised concerns about efforts to restrict public transport on election day.

But Bolsonaro argued that the last-minute extension had disadvantaged voters in regions considered right-wing strongholds.

After arriving in Miami on Wednesday, he declared himself the “legitimate president-elect” of Brazil.

He, his wife and two daughters had travelled from Brazil through northern Argentina, before boarding a chartered aircraft that passed through Ecuador to reach the US.

US President Donald Trump and Milei, both right-wing leaders, have been openly supportive of the Bolsonaro family.

The Brazilian senator later thanked Milei for his assistance, although he did not provide details about the nature of the help. A spokesperson for the Argentinian president described the journey as a rescue.

Bolsonaro, the spokesperson said, had escaped “from the claws of communism, which seeks to imprison all opposition figures”.

Trump, too, has suggested that Sunday’s election was “rigged”, though he declined to “take sides” after the result was announced.

The US president has previously issued sanctions and tariffs in response to the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, after the former Brazilian president denied his defeat in the 2022 election. He was convicted in 2024 of plotting a coup to prevent Lula from taking power and sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Relations between Lula and Milei have been strained since the Argentinian leader took office in 2023. Milei has repeatedly criticised Lula.

The diplomatic dispute follows an earlier deterioration in relations, with the South American countries each recalling their ambassadors in August after a series of public disagreements.

Nobel Peace Prize winner returns to Venezuela from exile, pressing for elections and criticising a controversial US oil deal with Caracas.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has thanked US President Donald Trump’s administration for opening the “floodgate to freedom” by abducting President Nicolas Maduro in January.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate on Thursday also called for elections to be held in Venezuela next year, in her first public remarks since returning from more than 10 months in exile.

“Thanks to their vision, their courage, and their action on January 3, the floodgate to freedom has been opened,” Machado told a news conference in Caracas, naming Trump, his administration and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Rubio “has set out a sequence of events aimed at moving toward a democratic transition that makes clear the holding of presidential elections in 2027”, she said.

Machado has praised Trump before, presenting the president with her Nobel medal – a prize he feverishly coveted for himself in 2025.

A longtime activist, Machado fled Venezuela for Oslo in December to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. On Thursday, she said she had come home to “mobilise society”. US special forces veterans with an organisation called Grey Bull Rescue helped Machado escape by boat after she spent a year in hiding from Maduro’s regime.

Since Maduro’s abduction in January, the country has been ruled by his former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez.

Machado was greeted by cheering supporters as she travelled in her motorcade after she returned to Venezuela on Sunday. Rodriguez voiced distaste for the fanfare.

“The show could have been avoided – the airports are right here,” she said on state television.

When asked about a possible meeting with Rodriguez, the opposition leader said she had not received any message from her or from Washington.

Shortly before Machado’s statements on Thursday, Rodriguez assured the nation that elections would be held in Venezuela “with the world as witness” but did not specify a date.

Her return comes just weeks after a controversial US oil deal that will see Venezuela hand over 20 percent of its vast oil reserves.

“This agreement does not reflect the levels of transparency that Venezuelan society wants,” Machado said, criticising the deal.

Former Brazil captain Neymar sanctioned by sports tribunal for actions after his red card in match against Bahia.

Santos captain Neymar has been handed a two-match suspension for covering his mouth while arguing with an opponent during Saturday’s 1-1 Brazilian Serie A draw with Bahia, Brazil’s Superior Court of Sports Justice (STJD) said.

The 34-year-old was sent off following an altercation with Bahia midfielder Rodrigo Nestor, and the sports tribunal found him guilty of violating the Vinicius Junior rule that forbids players from covering their mouths during on-field confrontations.

The STJD said the referee’s report also noted that Neymar, after being sent off, ran towards the visitors’ bench to confront his opponent and had to be restrained by teammates.

The suspension means Neymar will miss Santos’ next three matches. He is already banned for Wednesday’s league game against Palmeiras after accumulating three yellow cards and will serve two additional matches for the protocol violation.

Neymar and Santos can appeal the ruling.

The latest suspension comes three months after Neymar became the first player in Brazil’s top flight to be temporarily removed from the field under a new rule being tested in the league to curb time-wasting by goalkeepers.

The former Brazil captain is not expected to return to action until late November.

Rule against covering mouths

In April, the International Football Association ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌Board (IFAB) unanimously approved a rule whereby a red card would be given to football players who covered their mouths during a confrontation with an opponent or any other player on the pitch.

The FIFA-approved amendment was passed to address inappropriate behaviour before the World Cup.

It followed a UEFA Champions League match ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌where Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni made racially abusive comments directed at Vinicius Jr while pulling his jersey up over his mouth to hide what he was saying.

During the World Cup, Paraguay midfielder Miguel Almiron was given a one-match suspension after he became the first player to be sent off at the tournament for covering his mouth.

El Salvador troops to support rescue mission to find four UN-backed soldiers who disappeared after ambush.

El Salvador plans to send more than 2,000 soldiers to Haiti to search for four missing Salvadoran aviation technicians and fight armed gangs, as the Caribbean country postpones its elections again.

El Salvador‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the deployment on Wednesday, the same day Haiti’s electoral authorities moved the first round of presidential and parliamentary elections from December 13 to July 18, 2027.

The delay is another setback to restoring elected government in a country where gang violence has made preparations for voting dangerous.

The four Salvadorans disappeared on October 18 after armed men ambushed their vehicle in Croix-des-Bouquets, east of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

They were serving with an international security mission supporting Haitian police.

President Nayib Bukele has already sent troops to help find them.

In an October 21 post on X, written in Haitian Creole, he threatened to destroy Haiti’s gangs if they did not release the missing personnel.

Bukele spoke by telephone with Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime on Wednesday.

Fils-Aime’s office said they had agreed to strengthen cooperation on rescue efforts and security operations.

It remains unclear whether the additional Salvadoran troops will join the United Nations-backed Gang Suppression Force, a multinational mission assisting Haitian police against gangs, or operate separately.

Foreign troops have served in Haiti under UN-backed security arrangements since 2024, partly to create safer conditions for elections.

Haiti’s nine-member Provisional Electoral Council, which organises elections, also scheduled a second round of voting and local polls for October 4, 2027.

It extended deadlines for candidates to register and introduced online voter registration.

Fewer than 900,000 people had registered by Wednesday, the Miami Herald reported, out of 6.5 million Haitians holding the identification cards needed to enrol.

Gang-controlled roads make it difficult to reach registration centres, while violence has forced many people from their homes.

Haiti has held no elections since 2016 and its last president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated in 2021. Successive transitional authorities have delayed a return to voting, citing insecurity.

An international food security assessment released on Wednesday found that 5.94 million Haitians face acute hunger, including 1.8 million in emergency conditions, as violence disrupts farming and food deliveries.

The number facing acute hunger is projected to rise to 6.35 million by mid-2027.

Sao Paulo, Brazil – Far-right Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, along with his wife and two daughters, landed in Miami, Florida, in the United States on Wednesday, days after he was defeated in Brazil’s presidential run-off election.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes issued an order late on Sunday night for Bolsonaro to turn in his regular and diplomatic passports, believing him to be a flight risk in connection with a money laundering and currency evasion investigation involving the senator and his friend Willer Tomaz — who the local press says already left Brazil for Miami two weeks ago.

Argentine immigration authorities said on Wednesday that Flavio and his family used a land crossing to enter Argentina late Tuesday night, and less than an hour later boarded a private plane operated by Baires Fly destined for Guayaquil, Ecuador. That plane arrived in Ecuador, and later took off for Miami, Florida, with Flavio and his family on board. The Bolsonaro family landed at Opa-Locka Executive Airport near Miami on Wednesday morning.

The US State Department confirmed on Tuesday that it will issue visas to Bolsonaro and his family, allowing them to enter the country.

US President Donald Trump and Argentina’s President Javier Milei are the only two prominent world leaders who have not yet acknowledged Brazil’s Sunday election result, in which centre-left incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pulled off a jaw-dropping comeback to win re-election, scoring 51.8 percent of votes over Bolsonaro’s 48.2 percent. It was a difference of millions. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump said, without citing evidence, that Brazil’s election appeared to have been “rigged”, though he also expressed his admiration for President Lula.

News of Flavio’s abrupt departure drew swift indignation from some voters on the ground.

“He’s acting like a coward who’s unwilling to face the consequences of his actions,” said Cristiana Cunha, 36, speaking to Al Jazeera in Sao Paulo. She said she was unsurprised by news of his leaving the country.

Priscila Cardoso, a 45-year-old psychoanalyst also living in Sao Paulo, was even more scathing: “It’s a joke, it’s like a parasite fleeing through the sewer,” she said.

Political analyst Paulo Roberto de Souza of the Democracy in Check Institute told Al Jazeera that Flavio’s flight may kick off a new dispute for power among Brazil’s conservatives, in which the Bolsonaro family may be pushed to one side.

“By leaving the country, he’s made it easier for the right wing to start a fight over the Bolsonaro’s spoils,” he said, noting that, despite the relatively fine margins, Flavio’s defeat on Sunday was “humiliating” for the family.

“In 2022, [Flavio’s father] Jair Bolsonaro became the first incumbent Brazilian president to lose a re-election battle. And now, in 2026, Flavio became the first presidential candidate to lead after the first round and lose a run-off. It imposes a ceiling on the Bolsonaros’ power,” de Souza said.

In the aftermath of Sunday’s result, Flavio called a press conference in which he said it would be “impossible” for him to acknowledge the outcome of the vote, announcing he would pursue a petition to have the election annulled.

His claims were based on a last-minute Brazilian Supreme Court decision on Sunday that delayed the closing of polls by two hours, after both candidates had requested extensions due to insufficient availability of public transportation and adverse weather conditions. But official records show that fewer than 35,000 votes were recorded during the two-hour polling extension, and Lula’s winning margin was more than 4.4 million votes.

For some voters, Flavio’s call for an annulment came across as bad sportsmanship. Cardoso, who is a single parent, likened his behaviour to that of a “spoiled child who loses a game and takes the ball home with them”.

While Flavio has yet to concede defeat, his Liberal Party has recognised Sunday’s result, and prominent allies have sought to put the election behind them.

Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, who campaigned alongside Bolsonaro and won re-election in a first-round landslide, published a two-minute video on social media on Tuesday outlining his own project for the country and mentioning Flavio only once.

“Without a doubt, Tarcisio is the main figure in this reorganisation process on the Brazilian right,” said de Souza. “For this election, he was the name floated and insisted upon by some key figures in Bolsonarism, as well as neo-Pentecostal leaders.”

His main obstacle, however, will be walking the tightrope between political pragmatism and continuing to convince hardline Bolsonaristas that he is a “loyal ally”.

It is unlikely, in de Souza’s view, that there will be a member of the Bolsonaro family on the presidential ticket come the next election in 2030. “They are much more likely to be figures that provide endorsement, rather than actual players themselves,” he said.

Among voters, however, Bolsonarism stepping into the background appears like a distant thought. “The Bolsonaro family is always trying to perpetuate its power in Brazil,” noted voter Cunha, pointing to the election of Flavio’s brother Carlos and mother-in-law Michelle to Senate seats.

“I definitely think there could be a Bolsonaro on the ballot in 2030; I just don’t know which one.”

President Laura Fernandez inaugurated the $35m mega-prison built to house up to 5,100 inmates near San Jose.

A newly opened maximum-security mega-prison in Costa Rica has received its first batch of inmates. The prison was built with the help of the Salvadoran government on the outskirts of the capital, San Jose, the country’s Justice Ministry announced.

The Costa Rican Justice Ministry shared images on Tuesday of 123 inmates dressed in orange, seated with their heads shaved and bowed and their hands behind their necks.

“Costa Rica is writing a new chapter in its penitentiary history,” Justice Minister Gabriel Aguilar said in a statement.

The new prison is called the High-Containment Center Against Organized Crime (CACCO) and constitutes a symbol of a new “tough on crime” approach championed by President Laura Fernandez’s administration. It has a capacity for 5,100 inmates.

The CACCO was built with the help of the Salvadoran government on the outskirts of Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose, at a cost of $35m. Fernandez inaugurated it on October 15.

“CACCO is a monument to national security, a forceful response to organized crime, and a guarantee that the state will exercise its authority without hesitation,” the statement added.

The new facility has a capacity equivalent to 20 percent of the country’s prison population and “will also help reduce overcrowding in the prison system”, according to Aguilar.

Costa Rica, long regarded as one of the safest countries in Latin America, has in recent years experienced a sharp rise in violence linked to drug trafficking and organised crime. It witnessed a record-setting 905 homicides in 2023, followed by 876 in 2024 and 873 in 2025.

Authorities attribute most killings to disputes between criminal groups over drug trafficking routes and markets.

Right-wing leaders in other Latin American countries have also sought to replicate the mega-prison model.

US president seeks to underscore Latin American military operation, as Iran war causes midterm affordability threat.

United States President Donald Trump has featured a ship he said is carrying Venezuelan oil during a visit to Texas, where he will hold two rallies one after the other in the hopes of boosting Republican chances in a make-or-break Senate race.

Speaking at Corpus Christi on Tuesday on his fourth trip to the state this campaign season, Trump pointed to a ship in the distance.

“It’s got 1 million barrels of oil on it from Venezuela,” he said, adding the cargo was “thanks to our big victory in our recent war with Venezuela”.

The emphasis on the oil comes as US consumers have wrestled with high fossil fuel prices amid the US-Israel war with Iran, a key issue in the upcoming midterm elections.

“We’re celebrating the greatest oil victory in history,” Trump said.

It was not immediately clear under what pretext the oil had been shipped or whether the details Trump gave were correct. The US had received crude oil shipments from Venezuela before the US abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on January 3, but those transfers have increased this year.

In August, the Trump administration announced a deal giving the Pentagon a 35 percent stake in North America Blue Energy Partners, a new company overseeing 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. The White House said in September that the first shipment from the deal would likely hit US reserves in November, although experts have cast doubt on whether the deal will have any short-term impact.

Speaking to reporters earlier in the day, Trump referred to the shipment as a “gift” from Venezuela. The country’s interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, has not commented on the specific shipment.

At the rally, Trump also floated making Venezuela the “51st state”.

Key race

Trump’s frequent visits to Texas underscore the state’s significance for Republicans.

Trump endorsed Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican primary over incumbent Senator John Cornyn. The scandal-ridden Paxton now faces a punishing contest against Democrat James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian.

Polls have regularly shown Talarico leading Paxton, although that lead has largely remained within the margin of error. A RealClearPolitics average of polls had Talarico leading Paxton by 1.7 points.

Talarico’s victory would mark a sea change in a state that has not elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994.

It would also represent a major rebuke to Trump, whose Republican Party is fighting to maintain its narrow control of the Senate. Democrats are widely projected to take control of the US House of Representatives in the November 3 vote.

Talarico has used the final stretch of the race to focus on years of corruption allegations against Paxton, while drawing a contrast to voters’ affordability concerns.

“Ken Paxton represents everything that’s wrong with this broken, corrupt system,” he said during an event in Houston last week.

Paxton has sought to portray Talarico as too “radical” for Texas, saying his policies would hurt a state known for its pro-business policies.

Trump and other administration officials, notably Vice President JD Vance, have regularly focused on cultural issues, distorting Talarico’s past comments on transgender rights and border security.

Speaking in Corpus Christi, Trump repeated those attacks and urged his supporters to vote as if he were on the ballot.

“If you go out, and if you all vote, we win in a landslide,” Trump said.

As Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva celebrated his election victory on Sunday in Sao Paulo, he placed his hand on the head of a man standing beside him and beaming in a green and yellow Brazilian football jersey.

Lula thanked him for his role in the campaign, calling him “our general”.

Andre Janones, a 42-year-old Brazilian congressman who had spent the final weeks of the presidential run-off building a mass online movement to get Lula re-elected, then embraced the president.

“He played an exponential role in this campaign in lifting the morale of our troops every day, morning, noon and night,” Lula told thousands of supporters who packed Paulista Avenue, the city’s main artery.

Just three weeks earlier, the president seemed to be in trouble. He had finished behind his right-wing rival Flavio Bolsonaro after the first round of voting, his campaign struggling to keep up with the right’s powerful social media operation.

Janones, who had also helped coordinate Lula’s digital operation in his run-off against Jair Bolsonaro in 2022, was convinced Lula’s campaign needed a change – and that he could help turn things around.

He posted a video declaring, “We are going to win this election. Lula will be re-elected president of Brazil.”

His plan centred on a WhatsApp channel he had launched months earlier.

Called Exercito do Lula, or “Lula’s Army”, it had about 60,000 followers after the first round.

By election day, Lula’s Army had grown to almost 11 million subscribers, with Janones widely credited with helping Lula stage his comeback.

How Andre Janones built Lula’s WhatsApp army

Janones is a lawyer and congressman who grew up in a working-class family in Minas Gerais. He made a name for himself through his social media commentary during Brazil’s 2018 truckers’ strike and was elected to Congress that year.

In 2022, he dropped his own presidential bid to endorse Lula, joining his run-off campaign.

“At the time, he became widely known for employing tactics similar to those used by Bolsonarism, despite operating on the left,” said Viktor Chagas, a professor at Fluminense Federal University who studies digital politics and online campaigning.

Janones coined the term “cultural Janonism” to describe his approach, which relied on urgent messages, memes and calls for supporters to take action, as well as what Chagas described as the occasional use of negative campaigning and “content of questionable origin”.

But the scale of Lula’s Army in 2026 was unprecedented, Chagas said.

In the video declaring that Lula would win, Janones urged supporters to enlist as “soldiers” by posting saluting emojis and joining his WhatsApp channel, where he assigned them what he called “missions”.

The tasks were simple, from recruiting three friends to sharing campaign videos to promoting hashtags.

They came in a relentless stream of messages from Janones himself, often written in capital letters. Supporters couldn’t reply, but they could forward the messages or react with emojis, often doing so in the tens of thousands.

Chagas described the strategy as a form of “electoral gamification”, with Janones setting targets for supporters to reach together.

For Andre Pagliarini, an assistant professor of history and international studies at Louisiana State University and the author of a book on Lula, the appeal of Janones’s approach was giving people something they could actually do to help Lula win.

“It became an organising platform that grew exponentially because it spoke to a desire that many Lula supporters evidently had to do something tangible to defeat Flavio Bolsonaro,” he said.

How Lula’s campaign changed its message

But the path to victory wasn’t just about mobilising supporters online.

Pagliarini credited the campaign for also finding a more effective way to tell the story of the president’s working-class past.

“The campaign’s mistake in the first round was to present this history as a finished monument, worthy of admiration but distant from the lives of the people it was meant to represent,” he wrote.

After Bolsonaro mocked the president for having nine fingers during the final televised debate, for example, Lula responded by recalling how he lost a finger at 17 while working a night shift at a factory. He then linked his experience to workers injured as a result of employers’ negligence.

“Unlike Flavio, he reminded voters, he knew the world of work because he had lived in it,” said Pagliarini.

After the debate, Janones spread the message online, promoting the hashtag #SomosTodos9Dedos, or “We Are All Nine Fingers”. Supporters shared the slogan, with some posting photographs of their own amputated fingers in solidarity.

Janones had also publicly called for simpler, less polished campaign videos that showed a more relatable side of Lula, drinking coffee, visiting people’s homes and talking to ordinary Brazilians. Around the same time, the campaign started posting more informal, selfie-style videos.

“Lula was looser in his political communication, less mediated,” Pagliarini said.

Did Lula’s WhatsApp army help him win?

It is difficult to establish whether Janones’s digital army actually delivered votes.

“I am not sure there is a way to empirically connect the group to the outcome,” Pagliarini said.

But he believes Janones helped turn the campaign around.

“Janones himself became a kind of character in the campaign, a cheerleading strategist who seemed confident in a plan that had been missing throughout much of the race,” wrote Pagliarini.

Chagas agreed that it was “difficult to imagine the outcome we achieved without Lula’s Army”, adding that the channel brought together left-wing supporters who had previously been scattered across fragmented online communities, and gave them a way to work together.

The challenge now is keeping that momentum going, Chagas said, pointing to the far right’s use of “permanent campaigning”, maintaining the engagement of supporters between elections.

On election night, at least, Janones kept his soldiers busy.

“EVERYONE TO PAULISTA TO CELEBRATE,” he wrote, urging them to gather on Sao Paulo’s Paulista Avenue. “NOW.”

Later, he asked them not to go to sleep, adding that he’d let them go once he got back from the celebrations.

“Then we’ll discuss a few days off for you,” he joked in a message that drew more than 225,000 reactions.

When Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva scored his surprise election victory on Sunday, winning an unprecedented fourth term in office, his supporters were euphoric.

The joy they felt over Lula’s victory has echoed across large parts of the Global South – and could restore some hope to the grouping that has sought to give emerging countries a greater stake on the world stage, the BRICS alliance.

At a time when United States President Donald Trump is seeking to reassert US power and has cast BRICS as a threat to US interests, Lula’s victory in Brazil offers the alliance a measure of political reassurance, experts say.

A win by his rival, Flavio Bolsonaro, could have threatened Brazil’s commitment to the bloc, given his links to Trump and calls to reconsider the country’s role in BRICS.

Instead, Lula’s return gives the grouping one fewer reason to fear a retreat from within – as it continues to help forge a more multipolar future for a world dominated by the US.

As Esmat Zaidan, professor of public policy at Qatar’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University, told Al Jazeera, “The victory of Lula is important to BRICS’ political continuation in the current climate as it seeks to increase the bloc’s role and make it stronger in global governance.”

A spared fracture

It was clear to analysts that Lula’s win would safeguard the continuation of the BRICS alliance, while under Bolsonaro, its future may have floundered.

Lula himself was one of the architects of the bloc when it was founded nearly two decades ago, and has sought to advance its role on the global stage.

According to Zaidan, Bolsonaro’s desire to reconsider Brazil’s participation in BRICS and instead pursue closer alignment with Washington would have weakened the bloc’s political cohesion and potentially slowed cooperation on trade and financial reform.

Bolsonaro had reportedly also promised the US Trade Representative that Brazil’s Pix instant payment system would stay out of non-Western payment schemes, as the US seeks to safeguard global dominance of the dollar, said Imran Khalid, a geostrategic analyst and senior fellow at Foreign Policy in Focus.

“BRICS makes decisions by consensus, so one unwilling founding member can slow everything down from the inside. That was the real risk, more than Brazil walking out,” Khalid told Al Jazeera.

Still, Zaidan cautioned that continuity of the alliance does not amount to total unity within.

“The member countries of BRICS have distinctly different economic interests and geopolitical goals,” he said. “Therefore, while Lula’s victory makes it easier for the BRICS bloc to continue working towards a common agenda, his election did not eliminate these distinct differences.”

Guy Burton, a geopolitical and policy analyst, agreed that the bloc’s differences will remain unchanged with Brazil’s election result.

“BRICS matters because it represents a large share of the world’s population, economy and trade. But it has never really acted as a political unit. Its members are too different,” he said.

“The bloc now includes Iran and the UAE, which sit on opposite sides of the current war. That tells you how limited its cohesion is,” Burton added.

More multipolarity, but not a counterweight to Washington

The apparent relief in the Global South to Lula’s win reflects a broader concern among many emerging economies about their exposure to decisions made in Washington, “particularly regarding trade, tariffs and international economic relations,” said Zaidan.

“For these countries, the issue is not necessarily opposition to the US. It is about having greater room to make independent decisions and avoiding excessive dependence on any single global power,” he said.

Khalid pointed to China and Russia’s support for Lula, with Xi Jinping backing him against outside interference, and the Kremlin praising his work for the BRICS alliance.

“Most of these countries do not want a fight with the United States; they want the freedom to say no to Washington without being punished for it,” he explained.

“A strong Brazil inside BRICS helps protect that freedom.”

Lula has long advocated for a more multipolar international system, in which emerging economies have a stronger voice when it comes to shaping international rules and institutions, added Zaidan.

Burton said even countries and regions beyond the Global South are looking to lessen their reliance on  Washington, including Europe, which is building its own security against Russia and in support of Ukraine.

“So states, whether in the Western camp or not, have accepted that they must pursue their own interests. That means working with whoever they can. We are moving into a genuinely multipolar world,” he said.

Still, BRICS’ diversity and its member states’ varied interests have meant it has never been a coherent counterweight to the West, experts said.

Many in the alliance maintain strong economic and security relationships with the US, said Zaidan.

“I would see Lula’s victory as strengthening the case for strategic autonomy rather than confrontation with Washington,” said the professor.

“BRICS is potentially more effective when it expands the choices available to its members, rather than defining itself simply through opposition to the United States.”

Burton agreed, pointing to Brazil’s changing ties with Trump over the years.

“Russia and China are the obvious US rivals. But India under Modi long had a close relationship with Washington, and with Trump in particular, even if that has weakened recently,” he said.

“Brazil, too, was close to Trump under Jair Bolsonaro, Flavio Bolsonaro’s father, when he was in office.”

Challenging dollar dependence

Among the BRICS’ many ambitions is to promote trade in local currencies rather than the US dollar – and Lula’s victory could provide the political foundation to build on these efforts, said Zaidan, given that Brazil is one of the largest trading economies in the bloc.

Khalid said that after the alliance scrapped the idea of a common BRICS currency at its most recent summit in New Delhi in September, its ambition for trade in local currencies has become far more viable.

“If the [BRICS’ New Development Bank] moves towards its goal of 30 percent of lending in member currencies, and Brazil and China settle more trade in reais and yuan as they agreed in 2023, reliance on the dollar falls step by step, without an open confrontation,” he explained.

But Zaidan said that political will alone is not enough.

“Countries also need reliable payment infrastructure, sufficient currency liquidity, appropriate financial regulations, and businesses willing to use these arrangements,” he said.

For now the dollar reigns supreme in foreign exchange transactions, and there may be no tipping point for another decade or so, Burton said.

Ultimately, though, Lula’s victory could help BRICS move from political discussions towards more practical financial cooperation, while reducing dollar dependence will be “gradual, uneven and driven as much by economic feasibility as by geopolitical ambition”, said Zaidan.

How Washington reacts to this is another variable; Trump’s government sits at the contradiction of wanting to remain the world’s superpower, while also retreating to a more protectionist America-first role, said Burton.

“Developments such as Lula’s re-election will only sharpen the pressures already building in the Global North,” said the expert.

The United Kingdom’s King Charles lll is travelling to the Bahamas on Tuesday, where he will begin a nine-day tour of the Caribbean.

The tour will take him to the Bahamas, Guyana, and Antigua and Barbuda, where he will attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) from November 1-4.

This comes as demands for reparations over Britain’s notorious role in the slave trade grow louder, and as the monarchy faces questions about its future in the region.

So what is the significance of this tour? And what does the Caribbean want?

Here’s what we know.

What’s on the itinerary?

King Charles will visit three countries in nine days.

His tour begins on Tuesday with the archipelagic country of the Bahamas, where he will be staying for three days.

Then he will make his way to Guyana, a former British colony that had more than 100,000 slaves when the trade was abolished in 1807.

After two days in Guyana, where he is expected to meet the president and elected leaders of Amerindian villages, he will head to Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).

The meeting, from November 1-4, is expected to include discussions about the environment and trade and development, although the question of British reparations for slavery is also likely to feature.

What do the countries King Charles is visiting want?

Government officials in the Bahamas and in Antigua and Barbuda – both of which are part of the British Commonwealth with King Charles as their ultimate head of state – have signalled that they want to become republics. Guyana gained independence from the UK in 1966, and has a president as its head of state.

Guyanese President Mohamed Irfaan Ali said in an interview with ITV News that while Charles “rightfully” recognised slavery as the “darkest days in human history” during a visit to Barbados in 2021 when he was still the prince of Wales, an apology should be his next step.

“You exploited the region. You destroyed lives. You created underdevelopment,” Ali said, in a reference to the lingering legacy of the British Empire and the slave trade.

In 2023, a Lord Ashcroft Poll revealed that 51 percent of surveyed respondents in the Bahamas wanted to become a republic, while 27 percent preferred to retain the British monarchy as head of state.

Niambi Hall Campbell-Dean, chair of the Bahamas National Reparations Committee, was critical of the king ahead of his arrival. “Why do we still have a king? What does this person really represent to us? Why is he coming and how will that benefit us?” she asked.

What do other countries in the Caribbean say about slavery?

Jamaica, which is not on the itinerary for this trip by King Charles, made its stance clear in September, when it filed a $10bn slavery reparations petition in London, addressing it to the king.

That was the first time a British Commonwealth state has taken legal action pursuing “the cause of reparatory justice”, as the Jamaican delegation called it.

The petition is due to be heard by a UK privy council in March next year. The UK has, so far, refused to formally apologise or pay reparations for slavery.

Also in September, Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) Secretary-General Carla Barnett said reparations are “fundamentally about justice”.

“It is about recognition, accountability and transformation, and about building a just and equitable future for the descendants of those who, as the chattel of colonial owners, endured untold suffering, loss of life and freedom,” she said.

The transatlantic slave trade was recently declared the “gravest crime against humanity” in a United Nations resolution in March this year.

The last time a British royal visited Jamaica was when Prince William and Kate Middleton, then the duke and duchess of Cambridge, toured the island in 2022 during their Caribbean Platinum Jubilee tour.

The more memorable moment of the trip was when the couple was pictured shaking hands with Jamaican children with a fence separating them, which many criticised for being “tone-deaf”.

What’s likely to happen at the Commonwealth meeting?

The meeting in Antigua and Barbuda is expected to cover climate resilience as well as trade and development.

Leaders and representatives of 56 Commonwealth countries will be attending. Many want an apology for slavery from the king, but Buckingham Palace recently announced that will not be happening.

“The visit programme will…not shy away from ‘the darkest days of our past’, as his majesty has described them, but – in keeping with the wishes of our host nations – ‌it ⁠will principally be oriented to the vibrant present and promising future of each country,” a palace spokesperson said in a statement.

The palace added that it is “important” to acknowledge the “creative” ways that Charles has tried to right “enduring inequalities”.

The chair of the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Afrikan Reparations, Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, said the royal family and the UK government had failed to recognise the demands of those wanting reparations.

“I think it would be wrong to think that we can continue with platitudes. You’ve got ‘atrocity’, ‘deep regret’, ‘sorrow’, and now they’re going to say ‘darkest days’,” she said. “I think the king needs to realise that people wouldn’t keep raising it if what he was doing was anywhere near enough.

“You can tell that the Commonwealth means something to the monarchy, and I’m sure he would not want to be the monarch under which it crumbles.”

The political party of Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has acknowledged the result of Brazil’s presidential run-off, despite the right-wing candidate pledging to annul the outcome.

On Monday, Valdemar Costa Neto, the leader of the right-wing Liberal Party, issued a statement saying his political group had accepted the outcome of the vote.

Still, he echoed Bolsonaro’s concerns about the circumstances surrounding the election.

“We recognise the presidential election results,” Costa Neto said. “But we believe the issues raised need to be properly clarified.”

On Sunday, Bolsonaro was defeated by left-wing incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by a margin of more than 4.4 million votes.

Bolsonaro has yet to formally concede. In a post-election speech, he called the election results “unacceptable”, citing a last-minute extension to voting hours.

“We will take legal action,” he told supporters. “I will request that these elections be annulled.”

An extension to Sunday’s vote had been sought by the campaigns of both candidates — but for different reasons.

Bolsonaro’s camp had pointed to inclement weather that impeded some voters from reaching polling stations. Parts of southern Brazil, considered a right-wing stronghold, had experienced heavy rains on Sunday.

Lula’s campaign, meanwhile, pushed for longer voting hours after it accused some cities of limiting public transportation on election day.

The left-wing leader’s allies framed those reductions in service as an attempt at election interference, aimed at preventing Lula’s working-class base from voting.

Media reports indicated that Pablo Souza, a transportation official in the city of Salvador, was arrested on Sunday over the matter.

In response to the petitions, Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin agreed to extend voting by two hours.

Whereas polls across the country had been slated to close at 5pm Brasilia time (20:00 GMT), Zanin’s order allowed those that had not already closed to remain open until 7pm (22:00 GMT).

Following his loss, Bolsonaro cried foul, saying that the justice’s decision had disadvantaged his voters.

He pointed to Zanin’s relationship with Lula as support: Lula had appointed Zanin to the high court in 2023, and Zanin had formerly served as the left-wing politician’s personal lawyer.

“With a simple stroke of a pen, at the request of a former partner, [Zanin] changed the rules of the game mid-match,” Bolsonaro said in his address on Sunday night.

But experts signalled they were sceptical of Bolsonaro’s claims of malfeasance.

An analysis by Pedro Burgos, a professor at the Brazilian educational institute Insper, found that the extension resulted in 35,000 additional votes across the country, less than 0.03 percent of the total.

That amount was far short of Lula’s 4.4 million vote advantage. The incumbent won more than 64.25 million votes, compared with Bolsonaro’s 59.83 million.

Still, some right-wing allies rallied to Bolsonaro’s support. US President Donald Trump, who has clashed with Lula in the past, told reporters that the vote seemed “rigged”.

“Elections have to be indisputable and it looked very bad to me,” Trump said on Monday. “It looked like another rigged election, frankly.”

Still, Trump stopped short of suggesting that he would get involved on behalf of Bolsonaro, saying instead he “did not take sides” in the election.

Bolsonaro’s refusal to accept his loss has raised concerns about whether he will abide by the democratic process or follow in the footsteps of his father, Jair Bolsonaro, who served as Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2023.

After his defeat to Lula in the 2022 election, the ex-president refused to acknowledge the outcome.

Instead, he and his allies sought to overturn the results, including through a legal challenge, and prosecutors accused him of plotting a coup to prevent the legal transfer of power.

Jair Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence on coup-related charges.

Separately, he was also barred from serving in public office for eight years, after a court found he had misused his public office to spread misinformation about the election.

Flavio Bolsonaro, along with his siblings, has sought to have his father released. The family has denounced the elder Bolsonaro’s trial as a case of political persecution.

Still, it is unclear whether Flavio Bolsonaro will continue with his legal challenge over Sunday’s election.

The Brazilian news outlet Folha de S Paulo reported on Monday that legal advisers and political allies have convinced Bolsonaro to abandon his quest to have his loss annulled, citing the large margin of Lula’s victory and its validation by the Supreme Court and election authorities.

Bolsonaro also announced on Monday that federal police asked him to hand over his passports amid speculation that he could leave the country following his loss.

He said that he would comply with the order and had no plans to leave.

“To withstand the chaos, I’m going to organise the opposition,” the right-wing politician said.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva delivered a defiant message after being declared the winner of a run-off vote on Sunday.

He lost round one to his right-wing rival. But he made history by coming out on top in the second poll.

Opponent Flavio Bolsonaro has disputed the result and says he wants it annulled.

This will be Lula’s fourth nonconsecutive term in office. He’s promised a new approach to governing. But many challenges lie ahead. So, how will his government handle them?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests:

Thiago Vidal – Political risk specialist and the director of Political Analysis at Prospectiva Public Affairs

Robert Valencia – Latin American affairs analyst and a former journalist

Graziella Testa – Professor of Political Science at the Federal University of Parana

Investors react to Lula’s election victory with a sharp decline in the Brazilian real and concerns over increased spending and fiscal challenges.

Brazil’s real dropped against the United States dollar on the heels of Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s unexpected re-election after right-wing Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, led in the first round of voting earlier this month.

Brazil’s currency dropped against the dollar by 12 percent in spot trading. Bovespa stock index futures tumbled nearly 15 percent on Monday.

“I’m not surprised the real is sinking sharply; traders are covering their bets that assume a Bolsonaro victory and tighter fiscal policy,” Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Al Jazeera.

Brazil’s stock exchange halted trading for 30 minutes. The Bovespa index fell 10 percent from its previous close, triggering a circuit-breaker safety mechanism and reversing a rally earlier this month amid expectations of a shift to the right after Bolsonaro won the first round.

Ziemba says Bolsonaro’s refusal to concede the election has driven some financial uncertainty.

“The market pressure is also amplified by the objections raised by Bolsonaro, but the scale of the victory suggests that the result will stand,” she said.

Interest rate futures had also reflected expectations that tighter fiscal policy under Bolsonaro would allow borrowing costs to decline.

“They [investors] assume more domestic spending and higher rates in Brazil. However, the real is still likely to be supported by strong commodity revenues,” Ziemba noted.

Stocks closed on Friday almost 7 percent above their level before the first round, while the Brazilian real was nearly 5 percent stronger against the US dollar.

Interest rate futures are up 3.1 percent, rising sharply after President Lula’s win. Interest rate futures had previously reflected a tighter fiscal policy amid expectations that Bolsonaro would oust the incumbent and that he would allow borrowing costs to decline.

Lula faces an increase in Brazil’s debt and will be challenged with protecting both social programmes and investment, with investors looking for signs of whether his gradual fiscal approach can bring borrowing costs down.

Lula’s team aims to produce a budget surplus of about 1.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030. That would leave money to cover part of the interest bill, reducing the need for fresh borrowing. But public debt already exceeds 82 percent of GDP, while pensions and other legally required spending limit where savings can come from.

“Lula’s policies have talked about spending cuts, but he has not gone into the details of how that is going to look,” said Divya Singaravelu, head of research at Meridian 1305 Capital.

Attention will now turn to Lula’s choice of finance minister and what it signals about his fiscal approach.

At 80, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has pulled off an extraordinary political victory. After losing the first round to Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, by 47 percent to 45 percent, Lula defied the odds to secure a stunning second-round victory, with 51.8 percent of the vote against Bolsonaro’s 48.2 percent.

His triumph confounded every pre-election poll and crowned a dramatic campaign revival that few had anticipated.

Lula’s victory in Latin America’s largest country does more than halt the far right’s return to power in Brazil. It breaks a succession of right-wing electoral victories across the region and deals a major blow to United States President Donald Trump’s increasingly interventionist agenda in the Western Hemisphere.

When Bolsonaro unexpectedly defeated Lula in the first round, the result sent shockwaves across Brazil and beyond. For the government, the defeat was particularly startling given its strong socioeconomic record. What followed was an extraordinary three-week political mobilisation that transformed the sluggish first-round campaign of Lula’s Workers’ Party into an existential confrontation over the future of democracy and sovereignty in Brazil.

The economic record was hardly that of a government heading for defeat. Brazil’s economy grew by a cumulative 9.2 percent between 2023 and 2025, compared with an average of just 5.6 percent among its South American neighbours. Unemployment fell from 9.3 percent in 2022 to a historic low of 5.4 percent in 2026.

Brazil also exited the United Nations Hunger Map in 2025, after having returned to it under the Bolsonaro senior administration. In the Amazon, deforestation fell to its lowest level in decades, a sharp reversal of the trend under his predecessor.

Not everything has been rosy under the Lula administration. Millions of Brazilians have remained trapped in credit-card debt, struggling with extremely high interest rates, while an explosion of online gambling has devastated the livelihoods of families. The run-off result sent a clear signal that there was social discontent.

Lula responded with unusually bold measures: a sweeping debt-relief initiative and restrictions on online betting, as well as expanded social benefits, fuel subsidies, and the transition from a six-day to a five-day working week. These policies sought to reconnect the government’s macroeconomic achievements with the everyday economic anxieties of Brazilian voters.

Bolsonaro offered a radically different vision for Brazil: sweeping spending cuts, privatisations, lower taxes and, above all, an iron-fisted response to crime and insecurity. His proposals included building five maximum-security prisons modelled on El Salvador’s notorious penitentiary system and authorising lethal force against heavily armed criminals.

Bolsonaro also pledged to pardon his father, sentenced to 27 years for plotting to overturn the 2022 election, and to grant clemency to those convicted over the January 8, 2023 assault on Brazil’s democratic institutions. For his supporters, this represented an opportunity to reverse what they considered judicial persecution. For his opponents, it threatened to rehabilitate the attempted coup and undermine judicial independence.

Lula’s campaign came back re-energised, with many young Brazilians mobilising at the grassroots level. The campaign was able to overcome even algorithmic bias by social media giants like Meta, which favoured Bolsonaro.

Ultimately, the election became a battle not only over Brazil’s democracy but also its sovereignty. Trump’s administration has intervened conspicuously in Brazilian politics throughout Lula’s term, imposing punitive tariffs, sanctioning a Supreme Court justice involved in Jair Bolsonaro’s prosecution and openly embracing his son’s candidacy.

In May, Trump received Flavio Bolsonaro in the Oval Office. Two days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Brazil’s two largest crime organisations as foreign terrorist organisations, a measure Flavio had publicly requested.

These designations carry implications extending far beyond electoral politics. They potentially open the door to US military operations on Brazilian territory under Washington’s expanding war on so-called “narcoterrorism”. The world saw how one such foreign terrorist designation enabled the US to intervene militarily in Venezuela and abduct its sitting president.

Whereas Trump seeks to draw Latin America’s largest country into Washington’s expanding system of hemispheric military dominance, Lula has defended Brazil’s strategic autonomy, insisting that cooperation against organised crime must respect national sovereignty.

He framed the election as a choice between a sovereign Brazil charting its own course and one subordinated to Washington’s geopolitical agenda. Sunday’s election result shows that the Brazilian people have made their choice.

Importantly, Lula’s victory may mark a turning point in Latin America’s rightward shift. Since Trump’s return to the White House, the right has scored a string of electoral victories in Honduras, Chile, and Bolivia, among others. But Lula’s re-election suggests that its momentum may be faltering.

The result comes just ahead of the US midterms and could deliver a significant setback to the strength of Trump’s leadership in the Americas. In Argentina, President Javier Milei — who regularly attacks Lula and threw all his weight behind Bolsonaro — has been sliding in the polls ahead of next year’s presidential election. In Chile, President Jose Antonio Kast has suffered an even more precipitous collapse in public support.

Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum, for her part, has likely breathed a sigh of relief. A Lula defeat would have left her increasingly isolated in a region gravitating towards Mexico’s northern neighbour. Instead, Latin America’s two most populous countries and largest economies will remain firmly on the left for the foreseeable future.

It is too early to declare the region’s rightward turn over. But Lula’s victory raises the possibility that the wave has already crested. Brazil will not be joining Trump’s Shield of the Americas, and while the “Donroe Doctrine” remains a threat, its moment of greatest ascendancy may already be behind it.

Lula’s victory is a vindication of a lifetime spent fighting for society’s most marginalised and disenfranchised. And its significance extends far beyond Brazil’s borders. For defenders of democracy, multilateralism, international law, environmental protection and the sovereignty of the Global South, it sends a powerful message: the far right’s advance is neither inevitable nor irreversible. Not in Brazil. Not anywhere.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.