BRASILIA ¨C The shooting over the weekend of an official in Brazil¡¯s leftist Workers¡¯ Party (PT) by a supporter of rightwing President Jair Bolsonaro has inflamed fears of more political violence ahead of a heated election in October.
The local party official¡¯s death was the most dramatic case this year of a rising tide of political violence in the world¡¯s fourth-largest democracy, tracked by the Electoral Investigation Group (GIEL) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.
¡°The increase in violence has a lot to do with the current political climate,¡± said GIEL coordinator Felipe Borba. ¡°Not because it¡¯s polarized, elections have always been polarized ... but because polarization is being fed by a discourse of hatred.¡±
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