Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil – By mid-morning, the bright August sun emerged from the clouds and illuminated the May 1 Stadium in the industrial city of Sao Bernardo do Campo, on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

It was here, in 1979, that a bearded union leader from Brazil’s impoverished northeast stood on top of a borrowed bar table to address 60,000 striking metalworkers.

The event came to symbolise a democratic awakening in defiance of the country’s military dictatorship.

Forty-seven years later – and after seven presidential bids, a spell in prison and three terms in the presidency – Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returned to the spot where his political career began.

Only this time, he was the president, and launching a campaign to seek an unprecedented fourth term in the country’s top political office.

On October 4, Brazilians will head to the polls to vote for their next leader. If no candidate receives an outright majority, the race will proceed to a run-off.

At age 80, this will likely be Lula’s last dance. In a seeming wink to that fact, Lula walked onto the stadium’s stage to the song Sirius, famous as the pregame anthem for the Chicago Bulls’ last championship season.

If he wins, he will surpass his own record as the oldest elected president in Brazilian history.

Facing an ascendant right wing

Brazilian society, of course, has changed significantly since Lula’s days on the picket line.

A conservative wave has swept over South America, with right-wing presidential candidates winning elections in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru over the last 12 months.

A factor in that wave has been the administration of United States President Donald Trump, which has offered backing to right-wing leaders across the Western Hemisphere.

In June, Trump shared an article on social media describing Brazil’s upcoming presidential vote as the “next major test” in his project of “making the Americas great again”.

However, analysts in Brazil warn that this right-wing sweep has more to do with anti-incumbency and domestic factors rather than any region-wide ideological shift.

Amid anger over crime and economic struggles, electorates across South America have displayed a hunger for change, said Leonardo Paz, a political science professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), an educational institute.

“The left was in government in these countries, so of course the change they chose came from the right,” Paz added.

He pointed to Argentina, where libertarian Javier Milei rose to power in 2023.

“The previous government had caused a horrible inflation crisis, and even though Milei was a highly unorthodox candidate, he was seen as the only option to break that cycle,” Paz explained.

By the same token, Paz doubts that a Lula victory in October will spark a leftward shift on the continent.

“Political conditions in South America are tied much more to provincial matters in each country and global economic dynamics,” he said. “If a Lula win influences even one South American country to elect a left-wing government, that would be a surprise.”

‘A matter of affordability’

Still, Lula is hoping to upset expectations for left-wing leaders in the region, many of whom have been weighed down by economic crises.

Under Lula, Brazil has posted promising economic results. The annual growth in Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP) has averaged just under 3 percent during Lula’s current term, exceeding expectations.

By the end of 2025, the unemployment rate sat at 5.1 percent, the country’s lowest rate on record.

The strong numbers, however, have not translated into public optimism. Climbing debt, high interest rates and Brazil’s increasing cost of living have created widespread malaise.

Some analysts have compared the conditions in Brazil with the situation facing the US in 2024, when the country voted Trump back into the White House.

“It’s a matter of affordability,” said Mario Sergio Lima, Brazil analyst at Medley Advisors, a policy advisory firm.

“It’s not just how much things cost. It’s about people not being able to pay for them. Fewer and fewer people are becoming homeowners, there’s a huge demand for income, and people feel like they’re just stuck.”

To answer those stresses, the Lula government has embarked on a costly programme of credit expansion, income tax exemptions, fuel subsidies and debt forgiveness.

“The government abandoned the idea of winning over people’s hearts. It’s trying to win over their wallets,” said Oswaldo Amaral, a public opinion researcher at the University of Campinas.

Amaral explained that the working-class base for Lula’s Workers’ Party has transformed. Fewer people belong to unions. More work in the informal sectors.

While roughly 65 percent of workers have formal employment, the rest are largely independent contractors, business owners and members of the gig economy, one of the fastest-growing groups.

Some 2.1 million people earn a living through digital platforms for services such as ride-hailing and food delivery.

These workers, according to Amaral, tend to be sceptical of the traditional labour rights movement.

Projecting experience

But by drawing on his long history as a labour leader, Amaral said Lula is seeking to underscore qualities his closest competitor cannot: experience and longevity.

Heading into October’s election, Lula faces his greatest challenge from a 45-year-old first-term senator, Flavio Bolsonaro.

The senator earned his party’s nomination after getting the endorsement of his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, in December.

“It’s as if he’s saying, ‘I’m not a daddy’s boy. I’ve got 50 years of experience,'” Amaral said of Lula’s strategy.

The rivalry between Lula and the Bolsonaro family has deep roots. During the last presidential election, in 2022, Lula narrowly beat Jair Bolsonaro by 1.8 percentage points.

It was the closest presidential election in Brazilian history.

The Bolsonaro family, however, has cultivated close ties with the Trump White House. As a result, foreign policy, usually peripheral to Brazilian elections, has assumed unusual importance this year.

Trump has injected himself into Brazilian politics throughout Lula’s third term, painting the Brazilian government as censoring right-wing voices.

He has also sought to use economic leverage to end the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted of plotting a coup after losing to Lula in the 2022 presidential race.

Last year, Trump announced 50 percent tariffs on a range of Brazilian exports, as penalty for the “government of Brazil’s treatment of former President Bolsonaro”. He denounced the trial as “political persecution”.

But critics say Lula transformed the tariffs into a popularity boost, successfully pinning the blame on the Bolsonaro family.

A July 2025 poll, conducted after the tariffs were announced, showed his approval ratings cresting above 50 percent for the first time in about nine months.

Those tariffs were ultimately rolled back. But in June this year, Trump unveiled new 25 percent tariffs on certain Brazilian products, citing “unfair trading practices” under Lula.

Paz, the political science professor, believes Lula is unlikely to wring any significant benefit at the ballot box from these tariffs, unless he can tie the extra taxes to conditions facing the average Brazilian consumer.

“For example, if the government spots a specific good or service that has become unaffordable due to these tariffs, it can push the blame onto Trump and the Bolsonaro family,” Paz said.

“That could win Lula some more undecided voters.”

Confronting fears of violence

Where Lula arguably struggles the most, though, is with public security.

Polls show that violence is the top concern for Brazilian voters. The research firm Quaest found that 33 percent of voters ranked it as their primary concern, compared with 15 percent for the second-highest issue, the economy.

Flavio Bolsonaro has sought to wield those fears of crime as an advantage.

At his campaign launch in Rio de Janeiro last month, the senator argued that the Lula government had “surrendered sovereignty” to criminal gangs like the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and the Comando Vermelho.

He has also voiced his support for efforts under Trump to name Brazilian gangs “foreign terrorist organisations”.

While Lula has promised to create a dedicated Public Security Ministry, Flavio Bolsonaro has pledged more hardline measures, including the construction of five maximum-security “mega-prisons”.

“Repressive strategies are flashier,” said Lima, the Brazil analyst. “If you arrest a bunch of criminals, if you kill a bunch of criminals, even if it doesn’t fix anything, it gives the impression that something is being done.”

While Lula holds a lead in pre-election polls, this year’s vote is expected to go down to the wire.

A September survey from Datafolha found that, in a run-off, Lula receives 46 percent support to Bolsonaro’s 43 percent.

But the two candidates also carry high rejection rates. Polls show that about 50 percent of voters refuse to vote for Bolsonaro, roughly the same percentage that refuses to vote for Lula.

That leaves the two frontrunners with a narrow pool of undecided voters.

Mayra Goulart, a political scientist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said that Brazil’s political arena is essentially split in half, “between the increasingly radical right and moderate progressives”.

Her research suggests that this year’s election will be decided not by the mobilisation of party bases, but by those entirely disconnected from politics. That small fraction of voters will be key in so tight a race.

“The portion of the population that isn’t interested in politics, be that because they are working all day or feel like politics has never benefitted them, they will be crucial to winning the election,” Goulart said.

“Whoever manages to get this slice of the electorate on their side will win.”

A Lula re-election victory could provide a rare bright spot for Latin America’s battered left wing. A loss, however, would mean continent-wide alignment with the Trump White House – at least, until the next major election.