Brazil’s Presidential Race Is Marred by Violence

“I fear for the future of Brazil,” said Abidan Henrique, a 25-year-old engineer who is running as a Brazilian Socialist Party candidate for state deputy. After opposition supporters threatened in messages over Facebook and the messaging service WhatsApp to kill Mr. Henrique and rape his girlfriend, he avoids campaigning after nightfall.

About 40 mainly local politicians from the left and the right were killed in the first half of this year, while some 170 others were victims of attempted murders, beatings, kidnappings and verbal attacks such as death threats related to their roles in office, according to a report from the Observatory of Political and Electoral Violence at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro. The level of attacks is some 50% more than during the previous six months, and more than a fourfold increase compared with the first half of 2019, when the group started tracking the data.

There have been 140 attacks on politicians from July through Sept. 23, a 40% increase from 101 in all of the previous quarter, said political scientist Felipe Borba, who coordinated the report. After collecting all cases of violence against politicians reported in the press, his team of researchers verified that each attack was carried out to limit or prohibit the political activities of the victim.

“The country is deeply polarized, and these elections have been marked by a profound intolerance of political adversaries,” said Mr. Borba, adding that violent political disputes between voters themselves have surged in recent months.

Like many candidates, Kim Kataguiri, who is running for re-election to the Chamber of Deputies as a candidate of the center-right Brazil Union party, said he fears what might happen the day after the election.

“Whoever wins, the other side will likely hold protests, and this will inevitably lead to conflict,” said Mr. Kataguiri, who last week called for police backup for the first time after a Twitter user published the exact time and place that he planned to kill him. The death threat—the most detailed he has received yet, according to Mr. Kataguiri—came after he was attacked with a glass bottle in 2018 and hit by a car by members of the leftist opposition in 2015.

While Brazil’s history has been marked by violence—from indigenous killings under colonial rule to revolts, revolutions and the 1964-85 military dictatorship—elections in one of the world’s biggest democracies have largely been peaceful affairs.

The election of Mr. Bolsonaro in 2018 deeply divided the country, political scientists said. Known for his fiery and combative rhetoric, Mr. Bolsonaro has whipped up his base and enraged many supporters of Mr. da Silva’s Workers’ Party.

Mr. Bolsonaro has frequently said he suspects there will be widespread fraud in the election, without providing evidence, vowing to recognize the result only if it is “clean.” His stance has raised concern among his supporters, many of whom have said they believe the election is about to be stolen. If Mr. Bolsonaro loses, it would be the first time since the early 1990s that an elected president has failed to win a second term.

The jailing of Mr. da Silva in 2018 on corruption charges—preventing him from running against the conservative in the last election—has added to the tension, especially because many of the judges involved in the case were Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters, political analysts said. Mr. da Silva walked free in November 2019 after a Supreme Court ruling.

“It’s always troublesome when you have rising levels of political violence,” said Steven Levitsky, director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. “But what really matters and what’s new in Brazil and different from any period since 1985 is that you’ve got an authoritarian in the executive—that changes the game,” he said, referring to the executive branch of government.

Brazil’s Supreme Court has opened an investigation into Mr. Bolsonaro and several of his supporters over what it says are incendiary comments about the legitimacy of the country’s electronic voting system and attacks on members of the court itself. At a rally last year, Mr. Bolsonaro vowed that the presidential election would end only in “my arrest, my death or my victory.” He added, “And let me tell the scum out there: I will never be arrested.” The presidential palace didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Ahead of the first round of voting, violence has broken out among voters themselves.

In one of the latest incidents, police said a man entered a bar in the northern city of Cascavel in late September and asked who was voting for Mr. da Silva. When a 39-year-old man replied, “I will,” the other man stabbed and killed him, police said, citing witnesses.

In a separate incident around the same time, a supporter of Mr. Bolsonaro was stabbed and killed in a bar in the southern city of Rio do Sul after voicing support for the right-wing leader, prompting what police said was likely a politically motivated attack.

While political violence is rife in other Latin American countries such as Mexico, where criminal gangs gunned down dozens of candidates during election season, Mr. Levitsky said these attacks—ordinary Brazilians killing each other over politics—mark a worrying new trend.

About two-thirds of voters in Brazil said they fear being attacked because of their political preferences, according to a Datafolha poll conducted in August, raising concern that the threat of violence could reduce voter turnout in the world’s fourth-largest democracy. While voting is obligatory in Brazil, the fine for not doing so is largely symbolic at the equivalent of around 65 U.S. cents.

“The critical point,” said Mr. Levitsky, “is whether political organizations step up and actively denounce it, whether they are silent or condone it, or maybe even foment it.”

Leftist leaders have also come under scrutiny. Mr. da Silva has faced criticism on defending a former city council member from his Workers’ Party who is accused of pushing a right-wing businessman in front of a moving truck in 2018 after the victim heckled a leftist candidate. “We can never pay in cash this debt that I owe you,” Mr. da Silva told the accused former council member earlier this year. “We can pay it in solidarity and companionship.”

In a separate incident, a 15-year-old boy alleged that Guilherme Boulos, a leader of the Socialism and Liberty Party, or PSOL, shoved him and incited his supporters to beat him during a rally in São Paulo in late September after the teenager criticized PSOL as supporting left-wing dictatorships in other parts of Latin America. Mr. Boulos has denied wrongdoing.

João Bettega, who is running for state deputy as a member of the center-right Novo party, said he no longer campaigns alone after receiving threats and being hit in the face recently by someone who he said was an ally of Mr. Bolsonaro. “The violence is coming from both sides,” Mr. Bettega said.

Write to Samantha Pearson at samantha.pearson@wsj.com and Luciana Magalhaes at luciana.magalhaes@wsj.com