Brazil’s intelligence service has briefed foreign governments about attempts to interfere in its elections this weekend: the decisive election, in the words President Lula da Silva has argued, between “sovereignty and submission.”

Officials from France and Germany travelled to Brasília last month for meetings with Brazil’s intelligence agency, Abin, the electoral authorities and federal police. According to documents and sources seen by Reuters, Abin told the European delegation that it had identified interference by both the United States and Russia. Abin officials described the US activity as ranging from “lawfare” to more overt forms of intervention. They gave no details of the alleged Russian activity.

The warning comes as the Trump administration has committed $1 million to a State Department programme to fund civil society groups challenging what Washington describes as judicial overreach and censorship. Brazil’s attorney-general has asked federal prosecutors to investigate the funding as possible foreign interference.

Cyberattacks in Brazil have nearly doubled since last year, a senior Brazilian cyber official told the meetings. Hacks and phishing attempts against the president’s office had also risen sharply, activity the official described as clearly ‘election-related’.

Across social media, Brazilian electoral authorities are confronting a flood of AI-generated campaign material. Flávio Bolsonaro’s party convention featured an AI avatar of his father, Jair. Brazil has banned electoral deepfakes and AI systems from recommending candidates.

For months before the 2022 election, then-president Jair Bolsonaro attacked Brazil’s electronic voting system with claims repeatedly rejected by electoral authorities. Between the two rounds, his son Eduardo travelled to Argentina to meet political operative Fernando Cerimedo, who has claimed to command more than 50,000 bot accounts. Five days after Bolsonaro lost, Cerimedo broadcast allegations that Brazil’s voting machines had systematically favoured Lula. On the same day, #BrazilWasStolen went viral, boosted by a cluster of newly created accounts. Brazil’s electoral court rejected Cerimedo’s claims. Members of the plot to prevent Lula, the winner of the 2022 election, taking office later cited them as evidence that the election had been stolen.

On 8 January 2023, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters invaded and ransacked Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace. In September 2025, the Supreme Court convicted Jair Bolsonaro of leading a plot to prevent the legal transfer of power and sentenced him to 27 years and three months in prison. On Sunday, his eldest son will be Lula’s main challenger. More than 150 million Brazilians are eligible to vote in the country’s first round of presidential elections, as well as for governors, senators and federal and state deputies. Polling for the second round has Lula and Bolsonaro within the margin of error.

Flávio has revived attacks on the electronic voting system, including the false claim that Brazil’s machines were supplied by Smartmatic. Brazilian authorities this year denied visas to two Trump administration officials whom they said intended to visit the country to raise doubts about the integrity of the vote.

The Bolsonaros have a proven ally in the White House. In 2025, Washington imposed 50 per cent tariffs on Brazilian goods and explicitly linked them to the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro. It sanctioned the Supreme Court justice overseeing his trial and revoked visas from other judges. Donald Trump publicly demanded that Brazil “LEAVE BOLSONARO ALONE!”

Flávio Bolsonaro met Trump in the Oval Office in May. Two months later, Washington introduced another 25 per cent tariff on billions of dollars of Brazilian exports. Flávio travelled to Washington and urged the administration to postpone the tariffs until after Brazil’s election. Polls showed the sanctions moving voters towards Lula and his defence of Brazilian sovereignty.

One of the disputes between Washington and Brasília runs through the phones of more than 150 million Brazilians. Pix, the instant payment system created by Brazil’s central bank, allows individuals to transfer money for free and merchants to accept payments at a fraction of typical card fees. It rapidly took market share from Visa and Mastercard. Washington put it under investigation for discrimination against US companies.

Brazil’s central bank has signed information-sharing agreements with 65 foreign counterparts, and is assessing with the European Central Bank whether Pix could be linked to Europe’s TARGET Instant Payment Settlement system. BRICS central banks are discussing links between their fast-payment systems and central-bank digital currencies to cut the cost of cross-border payments and increase the use of local currencies in trade.

For Washington, the stakes extend beyond Visa and Mastercard’s share of the Brazilian market. A network of linked public payment systems could allow a growing volume of trade and transfers to bypass US-controlled and dollar-denominated networks. To guard against this potential expansion of southern sovereignty, Flávio Bolsonaro has proposed legislation to keep Pix disconnected from non-Western payment systems, presenting the move as a “decisive signal” to Washington.

At the United Nations last month, Lula warned that Brazil was again confronting “external interference in electoral processes”. “Brazil is nobody’s backyard,” he said. “We will not allow the enemies of democracy, internal or external, to undermine the popular will.”

Sunday’s vote also carries immediate material choices. Lula’s government has banned online betting after research found that 10.9 million Brazilians displayed risky or problematic gambling patterns, and announced a plan to buy distressed household debts at discounts of at least 90 per cent and pass the write-downs to borrowers. Flávio Bolsonaro has denounced the betting ban as “populist” and is campaigning on privatisation, tax and spending cuts, alongside efforts to secure his father’s release.

The Progressive International Observatory is mobilising to Brazil with a delegation of parliamentarians, former ministers, political leaders, academics, lawyers, organisers and experienced electoral observers from across the hemisphere and beyond.

The delegation will monitor the electronic voting system, political violence and intimidation, electoral disinformation, coordinated networks of bots and digital accounts, online platforms and foreign political consultants, and attempts by external actors to interfere with the free expression of the Brazilian people.

Last month at the United Nations, Trump promised to “reassert US dominance in the Western Hemisphere” and pointed to the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro as proof of Washington’s willingness to act. Fourteen Latin American and Caribbean governments have now joined his Shield of the Americas coalition. Brazil and Mexico have not.

On Sunday morning, more than half a million polling sections will open across Brazil. Four years after bot networks amplified false claims about the voting machines and an attempt was made to overturn the result, Brazilians will vote on them again. This time, hacks and phishing attacks against the president’s office have surged, Jair Bolsonaro has returned to the campaign as an AI avatar, and Washington has imposed tariffs linked to his prosecution while his son sought to reassure it over dollar dominance.

The Progressive International will be there to observe the vote, document threats to its integrity, and defend the right of the Brazilian people to determine their future free from intimidation or foreign interference.

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