Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who governed Brazil between 2003 and 2010, came close to winning his old job back in an outright victory in the country’s presidential election on Sunday, as voters expressed their rejection of incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. However, the former president didn’t obtain quite the margin he had hoped.

Brazilians are voting on Sunday in the first round of their country's most polarized election in decades, with leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva favored to beat right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

Most polls have shown Lula with a solid lead for months, but Bolsonaro signaled he may refuse to accept defeat, stoking fears of institutional crisis or post-election violence.

A message projected on Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue ahead of the vote read: "Peace in the Elections."

Brazil’s upcoming presidential election has been shrouded by an unprecedented climate of tension and violence. As the Oct. 2 vote approaches, episodes of harassment and attacks have intensified, with even neutral players like poll institutes turning into targets.

“Particularly since the 1930s, the connection of PSYOP with ideology and mass communication has made it a constant strategic element of international politics.” 

— An Overview of Psychological Operations (PSYOP), Federal Research Division, Library of Congress (1989)

Few brazilians had high hopes for a Senate inquiry into the country’s disastrous handling of covid-19. But its thousand-page report, leaked this week, is far more damning than expected. President Jair Bolsonaro should be tried for “crimes against humanity”, its authors say. His “macabre” approach to the pandemic, including organising large gatherings of his supporters and disparaging scientists, constitutes a “crime against public health”. Some 65 others are also implicated and could face criminal proceedings.

Brazil’s government, widely criticized by environmental groups as a negligent steward of the Amazon rainforest, has made an audacious offer to the Biden administration: Provide $1 billion and President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration will reduce deforestation by 40%.

The far-right leader tested positive for the virus on Wednesday (July 22) – some two weeks after his first test of the illness. An almost symbolic occurrence as Brazil’s coronavirus caseload continues to balloon as the second-highest in the world.

Bolsonaro, 65, repeatedly downplayed the severity of the pandemic pelting his own people, with many critics at home and abroad drubbing his coronavirus response as reckless.

Lula is finally out of jail — although, as both Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn made clear yesterday, he should have never been there in the first place. It has become increasingly evident that Lula never had a fair trial. He was, in fact, a political prisoner — a victim of lawfare: the manipulation of judicial institutions for politically motivated persecution.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Ecologist Dan Nepstad has studied the Amazon for more than 30 years. He explained to me why it's hard to know the true extent of these fires.