‘Today Brazil is a divided country’: Brazilians in Ireland turn out in force for presidential vote

The race for Brazil's presidency in 2026 is gearing up for an electoral showdown between incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his 45-year-old son-in-law, Flávio Bolsonaro. Flávio, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence for orchestrating a failed coup attempt in 2022.

Brazil employs a direct election process for its president, meaning each citizen's vote carries equal weight and there is no electoral college. A candidate must secure over 50% of the vote in the first round to avoid a runoff election. If no candidate achieves this threshold, the top two contenders will face off in a second round three weeks later.

Lula, an 80-year-old veteran of the Brazilian left, served three terms between 2003 and 2011. His governance is credited with driving historic commodity-driven growth and poverty reduction. However, he served a 580-day prison term for corruption charges in 2018, a conviction later overturned.

Flávio Bolsonaro, a 45-year-old lawyer and former senator from Rio de Janeiro, carries his father Jair Bolsonaro's political legacy into the race. Despite his father's imprisonment, Flávio's campaign has received his support. A 2024 opinion poll suggests a tight contest, with no clear frontrunner in the lead-up to the vote on October 25th.

A critical factor in the election is Minas Gerais, a vast and mining-heavy state with over 21 million inhabitants. Historically, the winner of Minas Gerais has gone on to secure the presidency. In the 2018 election, Jair Bolsonaro won the state by more than 1.7 million votes and went on to become president. Lula managed to reclaim Minas Gerais in 2022 by a narrow margin of fewer than 50,000 votes, securing the overall victory.