This will not stop rabble rouser of the far Right

The nickname says it all. To headline writers and voters, the front-running candidate is known as the Trump of the Tropics. If anything, Jair Bolsonaro goes further than America’s bombastic, erratic president. He once told a female legislator that she was not worth being raped and even called for the assassination of a former president.

He has claimed that a policeman who doesn’t kill isn’t fit for the job and that he would rather his son be killed in an accident than be gay.

Yet despite, or perhaps because of, his far-right views, Jair Bolsonaro is on course to secure the most votes in

next month’s election. Brazil faces a major economic meltdown, a profound political logjam and an unprecedented security crisis. Its people have made clear they have had enough of violence and government corruption. President Michel Temer is facing a third attempt to charge him for taking bribes and campaign funding from Odebrecht, a construction giant accused of the region’s most far-reaching corruption scandal. Lula de Silva, the former president, is barred from this year’s election because he is in jail on corruption charges, and his expected replacement, Fernando Haddad, was charged with corruption by prosecutors this week.

Mr Bolsonaro, despite being a congressman since 1991, has harnessed much of the anger at corruption, presenting himself as the only viable alternative.

He speaks nostalgically about the country’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship and promises to fill his government with current and former military leaders. His vice presidential running mate is a retired general.

Mr Bolsonaro offers a populist solution to crime and corruption. He is proposing to lower the age of criminal responsibility, step up the fight against organised crime and protect security forces accused of human rights abuses.

Boosting investment in police and loosening restrictions on gun ownership are also part of his plan to bring down spiralling rates of crime. He told the newspaper O Globo earlier this year: “We have to give the right to own guns to everyone.”

That voters have responded to this reflects not only the state of mind of many Brazilians, but also Mr Bolsonaro’s grasp of their feelings. Rodrigo Sias, an economist, told the

Americas Quarterly that the candidate’s success is due, at least in part, to the fact that he understands how many of his countrymen think. “Jair has the mind of an average Brazilian – and people love it.”

He certainly knows how to reach them – Mr Bolsonaro has nearly five million followers on Facebook – eight times as many as Mr Temer and nearly two million more than his rivals in October’s vote.

As such, he is another strongman who can get his unfiltered message directly to voters.

Analysts believe, ultimately, this attack will only make his opponents look weaker. “It’s likely that Bolsonaro will use the attack to argue that his opponents are desperate, that they had no other way to stop him,” said Mauricio Santoro, a professor of political science at Rio de Janeiro’s state university.

‘He is another strongman who can get his unfiltered message directly to voters’

‘It’s likely that Bolsonaro will use the attack to argue his opponents are desperate, that they had no other way to stop him’