In the last few days before the 2026 elections, Flávio Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — Brazil’s two leading presidential candidates — were embroiled in controversies centered on the same issue: religion.
On Aug. 23, during a debate in one of Brazil’s main TV networks, Flávio Bolsonaro, son of jailed former president Jair Bolsonaro, released a video promising that one of his first acts, if elected, would be to declare that “Brazil belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.”
