Brazil’s right has already changed the balance of power

In a televised presidential debate in Sao Paulo on October 18, Flavio Bolsonaro brought a number from Brazil’s prisons into an argument over crime. “Seventy-three percent”. The 45-year-old senator claimed that was the share of prisoners who had voted for his opponent, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 80. The figure came from polling stations inside detention facilities, where staff and eligible detainees awaiting trial could cast ballots. Convicted prisoners serving final sentences could not vote. Lula paused. “I want 100 percent,” he replied. “Even your father.”Jair Bolsonaro, the absent father, had spent 28 years in Congress, where he repeatedly praised the 1964 military coup that ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship. He went on to become president, lost re-election to Lula in 2022 and was later convicted of plotting to overturn the result. He is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest. A week after Lula’s inauguration, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters invaded and vandalised the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court in Brasilia, claiming without evidence that the election had been stolen.Back in the studio, Flavio was promising to “redemocratise” ...