> for anyone to mention current president Lula in the presidential debate
This is blatantly false. They ruled that the other candidates could not _direct questions at Lula_. Not that he couldn't be mentioned. Those are very different things.
> an openly partidarian electoral court judge simply decided that it was illegal for anyone to mention current president Lula in the presidential debate that was supposed to be held on national television
I don't see any news mentioning this, at all, the only reason I found for the debate to be cancelled was the inclusion of 2 candidates over the 4 initially invited for it.
Current president Lula of the worker's party decided not to go to the debate. The debate rules say that in these cases an empty podium is shown and those who actually showed up can direct questions towards the absent candidate as though he was there all along.
Then some electoral court judge comes in and makes the rule illegal so Lula can save some face.
And the best part is this judge has openly declared her support for Lula.
Blatantly pro-Lula? Globo is quite well-known for being against the Worker's Party for decades, including manipulating the editing of the debate from Lula's first attempt on a presidency election in the 1990s.
The Folha link is behind a paywall, can't read it, otherwise the Valor one states Gilmar Mendes is also responsible for a change in the debate format which caused Flávio Bolsonaro to withdraw. Seems more like a shitshow being played by all sides to score points with their own camps.
And yup, Brazil is far gone after the whole soft coup of Dilma putting Temer in power, getting Bolsonaro elected and having Lula a third time. Brazilian politics is stuck, a huge share of the blame also goes to the Evangelicals who are, for a lack of better words, a pretty stupid cohort of voters.
One of the interesting things about the Chinese rise has been their paranoid approach to keeping western media (and, I expect, NGOs) out of China. And the relative secrecy that their political processes operates under [0]. Particularly their stiff resistance to the likes of Google and social media. It is fun to question whether a more open approach would have resulted in earlier or more effective US intervention in their decision making than the difficulty that the trade war with China seems to have had.
[0] I suppose I can't read Chinese; maybe if I did it is all well explained. I doubt it.
Probably, all they have to do is make sure the dictator is supported by Trump. That should ensure a loss, assuming Brazilian voters are smarter that the idiots in the US.
Bolsonaro is a few pancakes shorter of a stack than Trump. Even though he's clearly a liar who attempted a military coup, in a multi-party election he still leads a cult of personality large enough to make his son a presidential candidate.
As with the US, education in Brazil needs improvement
I remember an old documentary in the Netherlands about the first Portuguese elections after their dictatorship ended.
The CIA needed to send suitcases of money to the socialists in order to beat the communists. It was all very hush hush with Dutch, German and English proxies. Everyone in those days was on the same side.
Socialists won, Portugal became a civilised part of Europe and everyone lived happily ever after.
The difference between Portugal and Brazil: if the Portuguese had known all of this was going on they would have turned against the US and Europe as a matter of patriotic pride.
There has been so much anecdotal evidence about US/Russia collusion in both US domestic and international behavior that I'm pretty much convinced Putin has some control over Trump. I don't know if it is blackmail, bribery, shared ideology or just the fact that Trump is a very useful idiot.
I know this isn't a quantitative analysis, but if it walks like a duck....
This article is an anecdotal example. Why are the US/Russia interests aligned in Brazil to get Bolsonaro elected? Why would both countries want an authoritarian elected? The US and Russia for many decades had opposed views of authoritarian regimes around the world and only during the Trump administrations have we seen the US take such a strongly favorable view of them.
The way I see it is that if more countries become autocratic, then Russian autocracy becomes normalized and they will become less of a pariah in the global world order. The more they can normalize themselves, the more the Russians can evade restrictions and sanctions. This is their end goal.
And just to add, the US end goal after WWII was to normalize democracy across the globe. Hoping that as more countries became democratic, more countries and populations would demand the same. We saw this a bit in the 90's after the fall of the Soviet Union.
> This is not "interference", it's just normal speech.
It's not normal speech for a 3rd party country to openly meddle in another sovereign country's democratic process. This isn't and shouldn't be accepted anywhere.
Hence why whenever it's been done it's through covert operations.
Meddling is involving officials from a government into the process, providing support (through financial or state powers) to a specific candidate. Anything related to a 3rd country's political body participating directly (or indirectly) in the electoral process is meddling.
> "Election meddling (or foreign electoral intervention/interference) by a foreign country is any action by a foreign government, or its agents, aimed at influencing, undermining, or disrupting the electoral process of another sovereign nation."
Would be nice if they said what this meddling actually is instead of quotes from people complaining about said meddling.
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> for anyone to mention current president Lula in the presidential debate
This is blatantly false. They ruled that the other candidates could not _direct questions at Lula_. Not that he couldn't be mentioned. Those are very different things.
> an openly partidarian electoral court judge simply decided that it was illegal for anyone to mention current president Lula in the presidential debate that was supposed to be held on national television
I don't see any news mentioning this, at all, the only reason I found for the debate to be cancelled was the inclusion of 2 candidates over the 4 initially invited for it.
Sources?
https://valorinternational.globo.com/politics/news/2026/10/0...
Current president Lula of the worker's party decided not to go to the debate. The debate rules say that in these cases an empty podium is shown and those who actually showed up can direct questions towards the absent candidate as though he was there all along.
Then some electoral court judge comes in and makes the rule illegal so Lula can save some face.
And the best part is this judge has openly declared her support for Lula.
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2026/10/ministra-do-tse-...
This is so egregious the blatantly pro-Lula television network Globo simply cancelled the debate and spoke out against the judge.
Yet another sign of just how far gone this country is.
Blatantly pro-Lula? Globo is quite well-known for being against the Worker's Party for decades, including manipulating the editing of the debate from Lula's first attempt on a presidency election in the 1990s.
The Folha link is behind a paywall, can't read it, otherwise the Valor one states Gilmar Mendes is also responsible for a change in the debate format which caused Flávio Bolsonaro to withdraw. Seems more like a shitshow being played by all sides to score points with their own camps.
And yup, Brazil is far gone after the whole soft coup of Dilma putting Temer in power, getting Bolsonaro elected and having Lula a third time. Brazilian politics is stuck, a huge share of the blame also goes to the Evangelicals who are, for a lack of better words, a pretty stupid cohort of voters.
One of the interesting things about the Chinese rise has been their paranoid approach to keeping western media (and, I expect, NGOs) out of China. And the relative secrecy that their political processes operates under [0]. Particularly their stiff resistance to the likes of Google and social media. It is fun to question whether a more open approach would have resulted in earlier or more effective US intervention in their decision making than the difficulty that the trade war with China seems to have had.
[0] I suppose I can't read Chinese; maybe if I did it is all well explained. I doubt it.
Curious to see how long this stays on the front page before it's killed/deranked.
*edit* ...aaaaaand it's gone.
Likely not for long now that I've taken a glance at the other headlines on this site...
The US attempting to reinstate another Dictator, I wonder if it'll backfire ?
Probably, all they have to do is make sure the dictator is supported by Trump. That should ensure a loss, assuming Brazilian voters are smarter that the idiots in the US.
Bolsonaro is a few pancakes shorter of a stack than Trump. Even though he's clearly a liar who attempted a military coup, in a multi-party election he still leads a cult of personality large enough to make his son a presidential candidate.
As with the US, education in Brazil needs improvement
I remember an old documentary in the Netherlands about the first Portuguese elections after their dictatorship ended.
The CIA needed to send suitcases of money to the socialists in order to beat the communists. It was all very hush hush with Dutch, German and English proxies. Everyone in those days was on the same side.
Socialists won, Portugal became a civilised part of Europe and everyone lived happily ever after.
The difference between Portugal and Brazil: if the Portuguese had known all of this was going on they would have turned against the US and Europe as a matter of patriotic pride.
There has been so much anecdotal evidence about US/Russia collusion in both US domestic and international behavior that I'm pretty much convinced Putin has some control over Trump. I don't know if it is blackmail, bribery, shared ideology or just the fact that Trump is a very useful idiot.
I know this isn't a quantitative analysis, but if it walks like a duck....
Some examples would be much appreciated.
This article is an anecdotal example. Why are the US/Russia interests aligned in Brazil to get Bolsonaro elected? Why would both countries want an authoritarian elected? The US and Russia for many decades had opposed views of authoritarian regimes around the world and only during the Trump administrations have we seen the US take such a strongly favorable view of them.
This, for a start:
https://whatispix.com/
The Bolsonaros are US puppets, of course. Kinda weird to see Russia on that list though... I'm gonna try to figure out why.
The way I see it is that if more countries become autocratic, then Russian autocracy becomes normalized and they will become less of a pariah in the global world order. The more they can normalize themselves, the more the Russians can evade restrictions and sanctions. This is their end goal.
And just to add, the US end goal after WWII was to normalize democracy across the globe. Hoping that as more countries became democratic, more countries and populations would demand the same. We saw this a bit in the 90's after the fall of the Soviet Union.
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> This is not "interference", it's just normal speech.
It's not normal speech for a 3rd party country to openly meddle in another sovereign country's democratic process. This isn't and shouldn't be accepted anywhere.
Hence why whenever it's been done it's through covert operations.
> openly meddle
What is this "meddling" ? TFA is pretty vague about it.
Meddling is involving officials from a government into the process, providing support (through financial or state powers) to a specific candidate. Anything related to a 3rd country's political body participating directly (or indirectly) in the electoral process is meddling.
> "Election meddling (or foreign electoral intervention/interference) by a foreign country is any action by a foreign government, or its agents, aimed at influencing, undermining, or disrupting the electoral process of another sovereign nation."