How Brazil’s Right Outcompetes the Left. Interview with Nara Roberta Silva and Michael Ahn Paarlberg – 14 October 2026

Brazil’s President Lula da Silva has forged a global reputation as a leader of the left. He’s also fighting for his political life after a surprising first-round loss to his right-wing challenger.

Voters choose on October 24 in the second round between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro, which Bolsonaro is favored to win. For long after, Brazil will navigate the twin governance failures of left and right. 

On this episode of the Order from Ashes podcast, Nara Roberta Silva and CIP Senior Non Resident Fellow Michael Ahn Paarlberg analyze the dynamics that drove the first-round election results—and the wider implications as we track a worldwide overt contest between democracy and authoritarianism, rights and facism, socialist and market approaches.

Guests

Nara Roberta Silva is core faculty and Praxis Program head at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. 

Michael Paarlberg is a fellow at the Center for International Policy and a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Hosts

Rohan Advani is a non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy and a junior research fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University.

Thanassis Cambanis is vice president for research at the Center for International Policy.

Related reading

Nara Roberta Silva, “Lula 3.0 and the Austerity Trap: The Left in power, the Right in control,” Public Seminar, July 17, 2025

Michael Paarlberg with Kelsey Atherton, “Q&A: Brazil’s Elections and the Return of Bolsonarismo,” Center for International Policy, October 8, 2026

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