Brazil's Lula and Bolsonaro's son Flávio launch rival presidential campaigns

Campaign launches in parallel strongholds

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro opened their presidential campaigns on Sunday, August 16, each rallying supporters in their political heartlands ahead of the October 4 vote. Lula, 80, wearing a hat after a skin cancer diagnosis, addressed a crowd at a stadium in São Bernardo do Campo, the industrial city south of São Paulo where he once worked as a metalworker at Volkswagen and led a strike in 1979. Attendance estimates varied by source, ranging from more than 10,000 to about 40,000. Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, gathered thousands of supporters on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, presenting himself as a moderate version of his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is incarcerated following a conviction for an attempted coup in 2023.

Lula's labor challenge

Nearly five decades after his union beginnings, Lula faces the task of winning over a new generation of digital platform workers with little connection to the traditional unions that formed the backbone of his Workers Party (PT). The share of workers in formal employment fell to 38.2% in December 2025 from 46.7% at the end of 2010, even as unemployment ended 2025 at a record-low 5.1%. The number of Brazilians working through digital platforms grew 170% between 2015 and 2025 to 2.1 million, according to a central bank estimate using survey data from Brazil's statistics agency. Union organizing rates have nearly halved over the past decade to 8.9%.

The PT is campaigning on a shorter work week and new protections for app-based workers, including regulations on pay, working conditions, social security and platform algorithms. The corresponding legislative initiatives remain stuck in Congress, facing resistance from technology companies and skepticism from the predominantly young, male gig workers who fear losing flexibility and facing new taxes. Polls place much of this growing voter bloc in the political center or on the right, a constituency Flávio Bolsonaro is actively courting.

Rhetoric and voter outreach

Lula pledged to continue government social programs and to combat organized crime and gender-based violence. He emphasized women's rights, noting that women make up 53% of Brazil's 158 million eligible voters. Brazil registered nearly 400 femicides in the first quarter of 2026, the highest number for the period since tracking began 11 years ago, according to the Justice and Public Security Ministry's database.

Men need to learn from childhood that they are no better than women. We need to be equal.

First Lady Rosangela "Janja" da Silva centered her speech on women's rights, addressing her husband directly from the stage.

We are the majority and we will elect you again.

Bolsonaro's pitch and international dimensions

Flávio Bolsonaro, running for the Liberal Party (PL), promised to "restore Brazil's sovereignty" with a focus on internal security and to "save" the country from corruption, crime, high food prices and rising public debt. He framed his priorities as "God, land, family and freedom."

I know I look like him. But it's hard to compare Pelé's son with Pelé.

Argentina's President Javier Milei attended Bolsonaro's party convention. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several members of the Trump administration have expressed support for him. Lula's allies have accused the United States government of seeking to boost Flávio Bolsonaro's bid through measures such as raising tariffs on Brazilian exports and revoking the visa of Brazil's ambassador to Washington. Lula also denounced foreign interference, saying regarding Brazil's mineral reserves that no one abroad would tap them and that Brazilians would do so for their own benefit.