In the last few days, all the news that has accompanied this election campaign for months has hit again:

Violence, attacks, allegations of fraud. And above all: verbal attacks. Bolsonaro's side denounces Lula as a communist and satanist. Lula's side calls Bolsonaro a cannibal and a pedophile. Much worse insults are not left in the repertoire of abuse.

The two men hate each other. And they spread hate. And in turn incite greater hatred. The driving force behind it: Jair Bolsonaro and his followers. The big question will be: where will all the hate go if the President loses tonight? According to polls, 75 percent of his supporters distrust the electoral system. Many of them do not want to accept defeat.

Jair Bolsonaro, 67, has built his entire political career on hatred and prejudice: hatred of the left. hatred of the establishment. hatred of cosmopolitans. Prejudices against blacks, gays, feminists, atheists, liberals. He does not criticize, but attacks, denigrates, manipulates. By spreading lies and conspiracy theories, especially on social media, like Trump, he has managed to turn half the people against the other half.

Should the situation escalate in Brazil tonight or in the coming days, the President will be responsible.

It seems all the more astonishing that Bolsonaro has presented himself in the TV campaign spots as the caring father of the nation, with a lovely voice and a lot of understanding for the poor citizens, to which the music of the "capitão do povo", the captain of the people. Always there: his always smiling and always adoring young wife Michelle.

Maybe the staging isn't that amazing. In the second ballot, he now needs the poor voters to win, especially the women, the majority of whom have so far rejected him. It's not enough just to hate.

On the one hand, it is astounding that Brazil is engaged in a heated neck-and-neck race between the once popular labor leader and ex-president Lula da Silva and the far-right Bolsonaro. Like the USA, this nation has very conservative, very religious voters, especially in rural areas. However, it was never as divided ideologically as the USA, for example.

Bolsonaro has now also achieved what other populists and right-wing extremists have already achieved in recent years: dividing the people, strengthening nationalism and xenophobia, building on religious fanaticism and the suffering of a people plagued by the pandemic and recession. He uses social media as a tool, in which lies, false reports and threats surpass those in the USA.

How are you today? According to polls, Lula goes into the runoff with a slight lead of four to five percentage points, but the pollsters can only be trusted to a limited extent after the serious errors in the first ballot. Bolsonaro has recently invested a lot of money in election advertising on YouTube and increased his financial promises to the poor. In addition, pastors and entrepreneurs close to him have put pressure on their supporters and employees to vote for Bolsonaro. A last-minute victory is by no means impossible.

In any case, Bolsonaro has taken precautions. If he loses, he will most likely follow his example Donald Trump and speak of electoral fraud. He closely studied Trump's actions in the January 6, 2021 uprising. Trump was only able to stay at the top of the Republicans because he has not yet admitted defeat to Biden. The image of indomitability is central to both – Trump and Bolsonaro.

In any case, the troops are holding their ground. Both Bolsonaro's supporters, many of them armed. As well as the police and military, who have to intervene if there are riots or if Bolsonaro refuses to leave the presidential palace. Fortunately, democratic institutions in Brazil are strong, but not as strong as in the US, where they successfully resisted Trump.

One can only wish the country that the result tonight is not too close and that it sinks into chaos. And even then, no one can be sure that half of them won't take to the streets when their leader yells "cheating". If 60 million manipulated Brazilians do not see Lula as their rightful president, the country will face even harder times than it already has.