IT’S hard to over-emphasise just how much is at stake in Brazil’s presidential election runoff today. Not only will it determine the future of one of the world’s largest democracies, but its outcome could tip an already polarised country into serious civil unrest and, according to some observers, prove a pivotal moment for the Amazon rainforest and de facto the planet’s future.
The fact that today’s vote hangs on a knife-edge after what has arguably been one of the most unedifying campaigns in modern Brazilian history has only added to the feeling of a political pressure cooker about to explode. Almost nothing has been off the table in terms of dirty tactics among the supporters of the two rival candidates – far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, sometimes dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics”, and his challenger, veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, or “Lula” as he is commonly known.
Across social media these past weeks, a deluge of disinformation from both sides has seen Lula supporters link Bolsonaro to everything from paedophilia to cannibalism, while the president’s supporters have responded by saying that Lula is a “Satanist”, plans to close down churches if elected or let men use public school toilets next to little girls.
