Far-Right Candidate Flávio Bolsonaro Leads First Round, Amazon and Climate Face New Reality

Far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, won 47% of the vote in the first round of Brazil's presidential election, surging into the lead ahead of an October 25 runoff against incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who took 44.2%.

The result is being seen as a shock to climate and nature activists. On its face, it could be read as a vote against the Amazon rainforest. Lula's administration has cut deforestation in the Amazon by nearly 50%, yet that achievement delivered no significant electoral advantage for Lula himself or for forest-friendly candidates in the same day's contests. Former environment minister Marina Silva lost her Senate race; Joenia Wapichana, former head of the Indigenous affairs agency Funai, failed to win a seat in Congress. Of 57 Indigenous candidates, only two were elected.

Flávio Bolsonaro is the heir to the political legacy of his father, former army captain Jair Bolsonaro, whose four years in power saw Amazon deforestation rise 59.5%, equivalent to nearly 2 billion trees felled. If elected, Flávio Bolsonaro has pledged to free his father — jailed for attempting a military coup and plotting to undermine Brazilian democracy — and says his father could hold any position in his administration.

As a senator, Flávio Bolsonaro backed a 2019 bill to scrap rules requiring Amazon landowners to preserve part of their native vegetation. His campaign platform makes no mention of the climate crisis at all. He has also courted support from some of the landowners most aggressive in clearing forest.

Flávio Bolsonaro is part of the Bolsonarism movement, which pursues maximum profit for extractive industries regardless of environmental cost. In the Amazonian state of Pará, for example, governor-elect Daniel Santos — once fined $275,000 (about £208,000) for clearing 280 hectares (692 acres) of unauthorized land — is now promising to wipe out similar fines. After Sunday's vote, Bolsonarism now controls seven of Brazil's nine Amazonian states, and could take an eighth in the runoff.

The movement's influence in the legislature — already dominated by agricultural interests — is also growing. Jair's brother Eduardo and mother-in-law Michelle won Senate seats, while an uncle and a brother took seats in the lower house. Just before the election, Congress moved to weaken environmental regulations. Blocking that trend now looks nearly impossible, especially with the Supreme Court in disarray after having served as a partial check on the unchecked expansion of mining, farming and monoculture.

The consequences extend beyond the Amazon to all of Brazil's biomes, to traditional Indigenous communities and to global climate stability. The question now is why voters have shown so little concern about these issues.

An inquiry into the causes is under way. Many point to the influence of social media — a tool the far right has used far more effectively. Under the Bolsonaro administration, his sons were members of a "cabinet of hate" dedicated to spreading fear and disinformation through WhatsApp groups and other online channels. Carlos, Bolsonaro's second son, was charged by federal police with leading that group. Environmentalists were frequent targets.

Another factor is the spread of American-style Pentecostalism, which is steadily displacing Catholicism across Brazil, especially in the Amazon. The political and environmental consequences of this religious shift can be seen by comparing the nature-protection messages of the two recent popes with the sermons of many evangelical pastors, who encourage followers to pursue wealth in this life as much as, or more than, adhering to moral norms for a better afterlife.

Lula, 80, has been slow to adapt. Though widely regarded as the most successful and emblematic Latin American politician of the 21st century, his message now seems to connect less with voters than in his heyday. The Workers' Party has struggled in an era of weakened unions and has partly become a victim of its own success: education and social policies lifted millions out of poverty, raising expectations for consumption and entrepreneurship; large subsidies for farmers — who now back the right out of frustration with environmental limits — played a role too.

Intertwined with these explanations is the geopolitics of the climate and nature crisis, which is sharpening US-China rivalry and amplifying both extremist ideologies and extreme weather. In that context, Brazil's election is the latest link in a broader trend: the far right taking power to expand extraction despite mounting evidence that the capitalist economy is breaching planetary boundaries. Over the past two years, US President Donald Trump has dismantled many environmental rules and treated the rest of the Americas as a sphere of influence; Argentina has followed; Venezuela has been intervened in for its resources; Colombia, Peru and Chile have seen strong shifts to the right.

Is Brazil the next domino to fall to Trumpism and a approach to nature that treats it as something to burn? The Bolsonaro family certainly hopes so. Jair once saluted the US flag; his son Eduardo has called on the US to impose tariffs on Brazilians to "punish" the government for jailing his father. Brazil's intelligence agency has warned that the US is seeking to interfere in the election.

The election is not over. Lula retains a narrow chance if he can persuade the millions of voters who backed no one. But the scales are against him: most eliminated candidates were on the right, and their voters are likely to swing to Bolsonaro. No first-round leader has ever lost a Brazilian presidential runoff.

Voters of course have the right to change their minds — on October 25, or under the constitution, four years later. But for how much longer will that be possible? If Bolsonaro wins, it is not only Lula who would be shut out: the Amazon and democracy itself could be finished.