Your Guide to Brazil’s Wildly Unpredictable Election

One candidate is a far-right former Army captain who waxes nostalgic for the country’s past days of military rule. The other was anointed by a leftist icon who’s in jail. Brazil’s presidential election is the most polarized since democracy was reestablished three decades ago. At the root of the political spectacle is a corruption scandal that put many business and political leaders behind bars.

In the head-to-head runoff election on Oct. 28, the front-runner is Jair Bolsonaro, the former Army captain who has served as federal lawmaker for seven consecutive mandates and who came close to an outright victory in first-round voting on Oct. 7. He is rejected by many Brazilians concerned about his commitment to democracy and offended by his past remarks about women and minorities. He is facing leftist Fernando Haddad, who took the baton from former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Many would-be voters refuse to back any candidate from Lula’s Workers’ Party, which became mired in corruption after holding power for 13 years.