The Far Right

The former British Army member harboured ‘extreme right-wing’ views and was ordering explosives components, say police.

A British court has handed a former army chef a nearly four-year jail term for possessing weapons for “terrorist purposes”.

Mark Broadhurst, 28, was given the sentence on Wednesday at Sheffield Crown Court in England, two years after police uncovered online messages in which he expressed racist views and an intention to sell homemade firearms to right-wing groups.

Police found a stockpile of weapons at Broadhurst’s home address when they took him into custody in September 2024, including knives and crossbows, black powder, ammunition, air pistols and what officials described as “an improvised homemade cannon”.

The former British Army member was also found to be part of an online chat group with three other men who last year were jailed for planning to carry out a “terrorist” attack at mosques or synagogues as part of what they believed to be a coming “race war”.

Frank Ferguson, head of the special crime division of the UK’s public prosecution agency, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said Broadhurst was “clearly interested in violence and developing weapons that had the ability to cause untold harm to innocent people”.

Detective Chief Superintendent James Dunkerley, who heads “counterterror” policing in the northeastern region, said Broadhurst was found to be harbouring an “extreme right-wing mindset” and was “proactively ordering components to make explosives”.

Broadhurst pleaded guilty to firearm possession and possessing an explosive under suspicious circumstances, but denied they were for “terrorism” purposes. ⁠A judge, however, ruled that Broadhurst’s offences were connected to “terrorism”.

His conviction comes against a backdrop of rising racial tensions and hate crimes in the UK, with marginalised communities increasingly targeted.

British police in July arrested 12 people in connection with an “extreme right-wing terrorism threat” targeting an Islamic gathering in eastern England.

Six months earlier, UK prosecutors said they were handling the highest number of hate crime cases referred by police in its history.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Rio de Janeiro in a student-led protest against presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro and the growing influence of Brazil’s far right.

The march happened on Wednesday, just days after far-right Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, earned the most votes in the first round of the country’s presidential race.

Bolsonaro won 47 percent, ahead of his closest rival, incumbent left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who gained 45 percent support.

Since neither candidate surpassed the 50 percent threshold, they will face each other in a run-off on October 25.

The results have triggered fears that Brazil could become the latest Latin American country to see its presidency switch from left to right.

Protesters marched through downtown Rio carrying signs reading “Never again Bolsonaro” and “No to the father, no to the son”. Others held banners reading “Dictatorship never again” and “Get out Bolsonaro”.

“I’m here because I believe in democracy. Because I’m scared,” said Alice Carneiro, 25, an administrator in maritime shipping who participated in the protests. She explained that, under a far-right government, she feared a backlash against her wife, who is transgender.

Jair Bolsonaro, the former president, led the country from 2019 to 2023. But his single-term tenure was marked by a series of controversies related to his far-right policies.

He voiced support for Brazil’s past military dictatorship, which was responsible for the disappearance and murder of hundreds of perceived dissidents. He also spread unfounded claims about the accuracy of Brazil’s election system, leading to a court ruling that barred him from holding office for eight years.

Currently, the former president is serving a 27-year sentence after being convicted of plotting to overturn his 2022 election defeat. After Lula’s inauguration in 2023, Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed government buildings in the capital, reportedly hoping to trigger a military uprising.

Critics have framed Jair Bolsonaro’s actions as a threat to Brazil’s democracy.

But Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has received his father’s endorsement, and he has backed amnesty for his father, a prospect that has raised concerns among protesters.

“I find this rise of the far right and the rise of Bolsonarism in Brazil very, very sad,” said Emmanuel Araujo, 19, who is preparing for university entrance exams.

“Lula might not be my preferred candidate,” Araujo added, “but amid this barbarism, we have to choose between someone we can keep criticising and someone who might take away our right to speak.”

Latest polls suggest Lula’s lead over Bolsonaro is narrowing, with neither candidate likely to win outright on Sunday.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro have wrapped up their election campaigns, each voicing confidence in victory ahead of Sunday’s tightly contested first-round presidential vote.

Lula, 80, closed his re-election bid on Saturday with a march through Sao Paulo, Brazil’s economic powerhouse, drawing what his campaign called a record crowd for a closing rally.

“Tomorrow, we’re going to win the elections in the first round,” he told supporters, describing Sunday’s vote as a choice between “democracy and barbarism” and promising to “defeat the far right”.

He has also framed the election as a test of Brazil’s sovereignty, warning against “meddling” by Washington.

Bolsonaro led a motorcycle caravan through towns in Sao Paulo state, echoing the campaign style of his father, before rallying later in Rio de Janeiro. “I am convinced that everything is in place for us to win this election in the first round,” he said.

The 45-year-old is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, a close ally of US President Donald Trump. The former leader, 71, is serving a 27-year prison sentence for attempting to overturn his 2022 election loss to Lula.

The younger Bolsonaro was photographed at his rally holding a portrait of his father.

Trump has not formally endorsed Bolsonaro but has said he is watching the election “very closely”, a level of US interest that has become a flashpoint in the campaign.

Lula’s supporters have seized on it as evidence Washington is trying to meddle in the elections, while some Bolsonaro supporters, frustrated by the cost of living, say they would welcome US pressure if it helped force change at home.

Polls released on Saturday suggested Lula was still ahead but his lead was narrowing, with neither candidate likely to win outright on Sunday. Such a result would send the race to a run-off on October 25 between the two frontrunners, a contest polls suggest would also be close.

It is a far tighter race than Lula’s last victory in 2022, when he beat the elder Bolsonaro by less than two percentage points.

Meanwhile, the Bolsonaro campaign has faced scrutiny over a film-funding scandal. Flavio Bolsonaro is under investigation over financing for Dark Horse, a biopic about his father, bankrolled by a jailed banker tied to one of Brazil’s biggest financial scandals.

Brazil’s Supreme Court authorised federal police in April to investigate whether Flavio Bolsonaro made defamatory statements about Lula.

Bolsonaro has pledged to seek his father’s release from prison if elected, and has echoed his father’s unsubstantiated claims questioning the reliability of Brazil’s electronic voting system, which analysts say could be laying the groundwork to contest the result if he loses.

Beyond the presidency, Brazil’s nearly 160 million registered voters will also choose lawmakers, governors and senators on Sunday.

Right-wing candidates have gained ground in Latin America in recent months.

Stuttgart, Germany – Minutes after the results of the first exit polls flashed across German screens, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) declared in a televised statement at the party’s headquarters that he was going nowhere.

“It’s a disaster,” he said of the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on September 20. “What needs to be done now requires backbone, steadfastness and patience. I will muster them – as party chairman of the CDU and, above all, as chancellor of our country.”

But pressure on Merz is mounting.

On Thursday, a survey by Germany’s public broadcaster ARD found that only one in 10 respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with his work. That is the lowest figure for any chancellor since the survey began in 1997.

His party crashed out of the state parliament in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, failing to clear the 5 percent threshold needed to win seats – the first time this has happened since the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came first with more than a third of the vote.

On the same day in Berlin’s state elections, the CDU suffered another major setback. It came second after The Left party, which won 25.7 percent of the vote. The Left now hopes to form a government in the capital although it will need coalition partners.

Just two weeks earlier, the CDU suffered another blow. The AfD won the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, receiving more than 40 percent of the vote, compared with 17 percent for the CDU.

No obvious successor

Merz could face a revolt within his own party, but removing him as chancellor would be considerably harder.

Under Germany’s Constitution, the Bundestag can replace a chancellor only by simultaneously electing a successor with an absolute majority.

Wolfgang Schroeder, a professor of political science at the University of Kassel, told Al Jazeera: “The CDU is in a situation where it can’t really get any further with Merz, but it also doesn’t know how things would work without him. There is no attractive replacement, so there is no alternative.”

A former chairman of the BlackRock investment company’s German supervisory board, Merz had long harboured ambitions of becoming chancellor but was sidelined by then-Chancellor and -CDU leader Angela Merkel in the early 2000s. He staged an unexpected comeback, finally taking office in May 2025.

At the helm, Merz has drawn criticism for remarks about the country’s “Stadtbild” (cityscape), widely interpreted as a suggestion that there were too many refugees and migrants on the streets. The debate has resurfaced in recent days with prominent CDU figures returning to the issue after the party’s poor election results.

The AfD’s surge is but one factor behind the decline of Germany’s long-dominant conservative party, which has produced six chancellors in its history.

The CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, govern Germany in coalition with the Social Democratic  Party (SPD). The government is struggling amid the rising cost of living, deindustrialisation, crumbling infrastructure and a housing crisis in major cities.

Nils Diederich, a professor emeritus of political science at the Free University of Berlin and a former SPD member in the Bundestag, said Merz has failed to make a good impression but argued he is not the main reason for the CDU’s poor results.

“Overall, I see the coalition itself as the main problem,” he said. “The Social Democrats have worn themselves out in the coalition. They have lost their sense of direction and are putting the brakes on reforms. That, in turn, is dragging the CDU down with them.”

Schroeder told Al Jazeera: “It’s possible that the crisis surrounding the chancellor could develop into a fundamental crisis for the CDU and from there into a crisis for the coalition.”

The reform dilemma

In July, the German government announced a package of 34 measures, including reforms to pensions, taxation, bureaucracy and the labour market. Merz originally intended to push through his repeatedly promised reforms by the end of the year.

But the state elections have put the coalition parties under greater pressure to stake out their own positions.

To ease the burden on people in need of long-term care and to plug multibillion-euro deficits, the SPD is calling for a cap on care costs and for people with private health insurance to share the costs. The CDU firmly rejects both proposals on legal and financial grounds.

State premiers from both major parties and the SPD leadership want to retain the option of retiring without a pension reduction after 45 years of contributions, which they see as a reward for a lifetime of work. The conservative bloc’s business wing, however, insists that the provision be phased out.

Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil of the SPD is planning new revenue measures to consolidate the budget but faces fierce resistance from CDU state premiers and conservative legislators determined to block any tax increases.

Schroeder warned that the coming months could be difficult.

“The CDU is caught in a dilemma. If Merz continues down the path of reforms that place a burden on society, the likelihood of cooperative governance with the SPD will diminish further. If he goes along with the course the SPD is proposing, pressure within the party will increase.”

Diederich said: “If the reforms fall through, then either Merz or the Social Democrats would have to act and let the coalition collapse.”

The next major election test will come in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, where voters elect a new parliament in April.

Siegfried Muresan’s loss of the confidence motion increases the prospect for snap elections.

Romania’s pro-European Prime Minister-designate Siegfried Muresan has failed to win a parliamentary vote of confidence, prolonging a political crisis seen as a boost for the rising far right.

Muresan, a liberal European Parliament member who was the latest of three designated prime ministers, secured only 182 votes out of the 233 required to secure the confidence motion on Wednesday, according to the official count.

The far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) largely boycotted the vote.

The 45-year-old had proposed what he described as a “reform-oriented” governing programme under his centre-right National Liberal Party (PNL), which teamed up with the Save Romania Union party, or USR, and the small ethnic Hungarian UDMR party.

President Nicusor Dan said he would nominate a new prime minister candidate on Monday afternoon, after holding talks with the leaders of the parliamentary parties, to avoid snap elections.

Romania saw the collapse of a pro-European coalition government in May, when governing social democrats, together with the opposition far right, ousted liberal Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan in a no-confidence motion at that time.

The far right, which comprises about a third of Parliament, threatened to impeach the president if he does not call early elections once the conditions are met.

Romania, a member of the EU and NATO that borders Ukraine, has not held snap elections since the fall of communism in 1989.

Political analyst Cristian Pirvulescu told the AFP news agency that snap elections would lead to another fragmented Parliament, but with an emboldened far right.

“Early elections mean that, from the moment they are called, it would take four months before a new government could be formed,” Pirvulescu told AFP. “Due to political instability, Romania finds itself in a very complicated economic situation. Four months is already a very long time.”

The country of 19 million has been struggling for months with the highest public deficit and inflation in the European Union.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is running in October’s election for a fourth non-consecutive mandate as Brazil’s president.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Senator Flavio Bolsonaro remain deadlocked in the latest polls, with the first round of Brazil’s election less than two weeks away.

Two new polls on Monday showed that the pair are statistically tied in simulated runoffs ahead of next month’s election. If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of valid votes in the October 4 first round, the two frontrunners advance to a runoff on October 25.

Lula is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term as Brazil’s president, but faces a challenge from the political right in Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of US President Donald Trump.

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.

A Quaest poll released on Monday showed Bolsonaro with 42 percent of voter support in a potential runoff, versus 41 percent for Lula.

Meanwhile, a BTG Pactual/Nexus poll has Lula receiving 46 percent of voter support, compared with 45 percent for Bolsonaro in a potential runoff.

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

US pressure looms over election

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 US administration looms over the race.

The US imposed two fresh rounds of tariffs on Brazilian products in July, which Lula denounced as an attempt to influence the elections through economic pressure.

The Brazilian leader is currently in New York, where he is preparing to address the United Nations General Assembly.

Lula met New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for the first time on Monday. In a brief statement to reporters after the meeting, the Brazilian president said the two had talked about problems common to both Brazil and the United States, particularly the rising cost of living.

Far-right AfD defeated German chancellor’s CDU in recent Saxony-Anhalt state election, casting doubt on his future.

Voters in the eastern German states of Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are heading to the polls as far-right and far-left gains threaten to affect the political standing of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

About 2.5 million people are eligible to vote in the city-state of Berlin, Germany’s capital, and nearly 1.3 million in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Sunday. Polling booths in both states – traditionally seen as more left-leaning – opened at 8am local time (06:00 GMT) and will close at 6pm (16:00 GMT).

Pressure on Merz has been mounting after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) delivered a major defeat to his Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) party two weeks ago in the key state of Saxony-Anhalt. The AfD fell just short of an absolute majority, which would have allowed it to govern on its own.

And after just 16 months in power, Merz’s approval ratings have plunged to about 14 percent, the latest polls suggest, as he struggles to push through promised economic and social welfare reforms with his centre-left coalition partners, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), raising doubts among fellow party members whether he can continue to lead.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Merz’s party is an onlooker to the main battle between the SPD’s popular state premier Manuela Schwesig and the AfD’s lead candidate, former radio presenter Leif-Erik Holm.

While the AfD was polling at 36 percent against the SPD’s 37 percent, Merz’s CDU, at just 6 percent, was dangerously close to the 5 percent hurdle needed to stay in the state parliament, according to public broadcaster ZDF.

Reporting from a polling station in Schwerin, Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane said there was “very much all to play for” in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

“The race between the AfD here and the Social Democrat government is very close indeed,” he added, pointing out to the recent opinion polls.

In  Berlin, the CDU is running a tight race against the far-left Die Linke (The Left), which promises drastic measures to solve a dire housing crisis and is popular with young people.

Regional elections would not usually draw much interest outside Germany, but the AfD’s success in Saxony-Anhalt, which it sees as the first step towards winning federal elections due in 2029, has sent shockwaves through Europe.

“Saxony-Anhalt was certainly a revolution for the German party system,” Florian Hartleb, a professor of international relations at Modul University in Vienna and an expert on far-right movements, told Al Jazeera.

Hartleb said the AFD had been “fundamentally excluded” from the power system, with the other political parties trying “everything” against it in recent years. “But it didn’t work out,” he said, citing voters’ dissatisfaction over migration, the economy and social inequality.

Merz has reportedly scheduled a crisis CDU meeting and cleared his calendar to deal with potential aftershocks from Sunday’s elections.

Justice minister condemns ‘Hitler salutes, antisemitic slogans, violence’ at the anti-immigration rally.

Dutch riot police have intervened at a protest against immigration and asylum policies after about 500 far-right demonstrators pelted them with projectiles and fireworks .

Police used baton charges and dogs to break up the demonstration in The Hague on Saturday, reported the AFP news agency.

Local authorities said the demonstration was ended because of continued violence, and protesters were escorted away from Malieveld park in the city centre.

Police said they arrested 24 people and deployed water cannon to disperse the rioters. Further investigations were underway, they added.

Prime Minister Rob Jetten said on X that the demonstrators deliberately sought confrontation with the police and chanted “abhorrent” far-right and antisemitic slogans

Justice Minister David van Weel condemned the violent scenes and slogans.

“Identical images from the Malieveld. Hitler salutes, antisemitic slogans, violence against the police and throwing fireworks at the riot squad,” he posted on X. “It is important that hardline action is taken against this.”

He also thanked police officers for helping to maintain the democratic rule of law.

The “Wij zijn het volk” rally, which translates to “We are the people”, was organised to protest against government policies in the Netherlands’, specifically on immigration.

The protesters had planned to march through The Hague, but local authorities banned it when violence began and ordered the demonstration to be broken up.

Someone at the rally was seen giving a Hitler salute, while a truck serving as a stage displayed a screen reading “The Netherlands is for the Dutch,” according to the country’s largest national news agency, Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANP).

Protester Thijs Jansen, a 31-year-old mechanic, told AFP: “We’re losing our country. We’re literally losing our country to mass migration”.

Saturday’s unrest came a year after Dutch police used water cannon to disperse another anti-immigration rally in The Hague.

A police car was then set on fire in clashes between black-clad protesters and police, as the headquarters of the centrist D66 party were attacked. Its leader, Rob Jetten, is now prime minister.

Magdalena Andersson will likely face several challenges as she tries to get Sweden’s other left-wing parties to unite.

Sweden’s opposition leader has officially begun talks to form a coalition government after the country’s left-wing bloc won a slim majority in last week’s election.

Magdalena Andersson, leader of the centre-left Social Democrats, was asked by Parliament Speaker Andreas Norlen on Friday to begin efforts to form a new government.

Norlen’s request follows the resignation of centre-right Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who stepped down on Thursday after the general election result was confirmed.

“I have now been tasked with exploring the possibility of forming a government. A task I undertake with great humility and will act constructively to put together a new government,” Andersson said in a statement posted on Instagram.

“My approach to the work that is now taking place is that all political forces now need to put party tactics aside and put Sweden and the Swedish people first.”

Andersson will likely face a series of challenges as she tries to persuade Sweden’s other left-wing parties to unite and form a new administration. The left-wing bloc won 176 of Parliament’s 349 seats in last week’s vote, securing a razor-thin majority of three seats.

Andersson is expected to seek the support of three other left-wing parties: the Greens, the Centre Party and the Left Party.

The socialist Left Party says Andersson will have to award some of its MPs cabinet posts to win their support. However, the liberal Centre Party insists it will not support such a government.

Andersson has until September 28 to form a government. If she fails, Kristersson, whose centre-right bloc won 173 seats, will try to form a coalition.

Coalition and minority governments are common in Sweden because the country has two major left- and right-wing blocs, both of which contain four parties.

The process of forming a government following the 2022 election took more than a month.