Elections

Who will win Brazil's presidential election run-off on 25 October. No-one knows. Lula's campaign has mobilized on the streets and now he and his rival Flávio Bolsonaro are running neck and neck.

An impassioned editorial on the website of LAB's partner Amazônia Latitude calls for the protection of press freedom which was significantly damaged during the Presidency of Jair Bolsonaro and is gravely at risk if Flávio Bolsonaro wins the run-off election on 25 October. The appeal was co-signed by 52 organizations, also including LAB partner Sumaúma.

Flávio Bolsonaro has finished ahead of Lula in Brazil’s presidential first round. Stanton Geyer examines the grievances driving Lula’s rejection, the political character built around him, and what a Bolsonaro return to power could mean for Brazilian democracy.

Brazil's 2026 election has exposed the reach of Rio de Janeiro's criminal militias. From electoral intimidation to corrupt police relationships and diverted firearms, these groups exercise power well beyond their neighbourhoods. What would Flávio Bolsonaro's proposed security policies mean for them?

The first round of Brazil's presidential election on 4 October gave a slim majority to right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro. LAB's Brazil expert Sue Branford examines the disastrous outlook for the country, and especially for the Amazon, if Bolsonaro wins the run-off on 25 October.

When Flávio Bolsonaro proclaims 'The Amazon is Ours', he threatens, if elected in Brazil's 4 October presidental election (or the likely run-off) to condemn Brazil, The Amazon and the world to the continuity of an inheritance from his father Jair's presidency, heredofascism, which threatens the forest, the country and the planet.

The patron saint, the swindler and the supreme court: these are the key ingredients of Brazil’s turbulent, nailbiting presidential election on 4 October, writes Jan Rocha.

This ambitious new book co-authored by Jenny Pearce and Juan David Velasco Montoya, offers the most comprehensive analysis of the history of Colombian elites since 1886, the date of a Constitution that sought to put an end to the civil wars of the 19th century. Relying on an extensive database of Colombian elites, interviews with hard-to-access elites, and a broad review of secondary sources this 750-page monograph offers a sophisticated theoretical framework for understanding the consolidation of a socio-economic, political and cultural infrastructure that perpetuates inequality and violence alongside the rule of law and free-market capitalism in Colombia. In light of what they call “Colombia’s singularity”, the book also analyses the progress toward change and pitfalls made by Colombia’s first-ever leftist president Gustavo Petro (2022–2026).

Jenny Pearce on De la Espriella's victory and her new book ¿Quién manda en Colombia?

Former Sandinista student leader Irving Larios Sánchez was arrested by the Ortega-Murillo government in 2021 and spend 507 days in prison. Interviewed for LAB by Julie Cupples, he regards the Sandinista project as betrayed, replaced by a reign of terror.