Prominent Brazilian pediatrician and community health expert Dr. Daniel Becker has 2.2 million followers on his Instagram channel, 362,000 on YouTube and 192,000 on his Facebook page. He maintains a widely popular weekly column on child and adolescent health in print and online through the O Globo newspaper. Becker has appeared as the star attendee on Roda Viva, one of the most respected interview and talk shows on Brazilian television. He received his medical degree from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and a Master’s Degree in Public Health from the National School of Public Health (ENSP) at Fiocruz, Brazil’s national institute of health. In addition to attending to and treating youth for years in his private practice, he is an Ashoka Fellow for his role in founding CEDAPS (Center for the Promotion of Health), which since 1993 partners with local organizers to promote healthcare in hundreds of Rio favelas.
On October 18, Dr. Becker published a video on his Instagram channel that summarizes the critical turning point Brazil faces during its second round vote for president on October 25. Read RioOnWatch‘s full translation of his statement:
Folks, I am a pediatrician and a public health physician with a forty-year career. Today, I am here to issue the most important warning I have given since I began working on social media.
I want to speak to those of you who did not vote, who cast a null ballot because you can no longer stand this polarization, or who voted for a candidate who did not make it to the runoff—I am speaking especially to you.
Please, pay attention, because what happens on the 25th will enter your home, your life, and the lives of your children.
I work with children, adolescents, and families—I work with society at large—and I always follow politics, because it determines our well-being and our future. I can guarantee you this: this is the most important election of our lives, and it is not a contest between the right and the left. That is an illusion.
On one side, we have Lula—a politician with a vision for the country, someone with both strengths and flaws, whom I appreciate in some respects and criticize in others. On the other side, we do not have the “right,” nor do we have democracy or politics. Instead, we have [Flávio Bolsonaro and] a mafia-style power project—one that is constantly intertwined with organized crime and that feeds on hatred and death.
We are at risk of losing everything we hold most precious. So, listen to what we stand to lose.
We could lose our daily peace. This group has already distributed thousands of weapons and assault rifles. As predicted, a large portion of them ended up in the hands of organized crime. And, fully aware of this, Flávio [Bolsonaro] promises to do it all over again: more assault rifles for criminals, more children killed in their own homes, and more road-rage incidents or domestic disputes ending in gunfire.
We could lose our sovereignty. This is not just an empty term. This group went to the United States to ask that our own country be harmed. They are cutting shady deals over there. They are handing over Brazil in exchange for favors for the family. Flávio openly says he wants to hand over our greatest riches to Trump. We possess trillions [of dollars] worth of rare earth minerals and other assets in the field of biotechnology.
Golden-Globe winning actor Wagner Moura hosts Episode 6 of the investigative journalism series Revelando titled “Submissive Homeland” uncovering investigations into Flávio Bolsonaro’s ties to the Trump administration and US interests in Brazilian rare earths influencing Brazil’s 2026 elections.
And he is already beholden to others, having received funding from abroad as well as significant assistance from Meta—which favored his campaign while undermining Lula’s. Furthermore, sovereignty—let’s be clear—also begins at home. Militias already control a large portion of the population in Rio. Flávio has honored militia-linked murderers, hired their relatives, praised those who killed a judge and Marielle [Franco], voted against the parliamentary inquiry (CPI) into the militias (the sole state deputy to do so), and recently directed public funds—via parliamentary amendments—to these groups. He is deeply enmeshed with them. There is also evidence that his political circle here in Rio is involved in drug trafficking; in fact, several of his allies—people he even nominated for the Senate or for government positions—have been arrested for such crimes.
Just imagine: the terrifying power of these militias—which oppress entire communities—gaining friends in the presidential palace. This could reach your own city, your own neighborhood. On top of that, they talk about privatizing everything, from Banco do Brasil to Petrobras. This would mean private entities taking control of the most vital aspects of our lives. Gasoline prices and inflation could skyrocket, and far worse things could happen.
We risk losing our justice system and our social security. Our institutions—the Federal Police, in particular—would be co-opted. His father did exactly that, without a shred of shame: he fired his own Minister of Justice to interfere with the Federal Police, all to protect this son of his—the very man now running for president.
Imagine our institutions being taken over by people who want to shut down investigations—cases like the “Master Bank” scheme, the theft of funds from INSS pensioners (pension fraud scandal), or the laundering of criminal proceeds through the financial markets. This group—and Flávio in particular—is neck-deep in all these investigations, as the media shows us every single day.
Under his administration, investigations would grind to a halt, and the criminals would go free. Instead of an intelligence-led approach—with the tax authorities, police, and the Public Prosecutor’s Office working in coordination, as was done in São Paulo—what they offer here in Rio is what we currently see: killings in our communities. This solves nothing; it kills innocent people and makes life a living hell for honest families.
And we risk losing everything that has been built since [the passing of Brazil’s Constitution following redemocratization in] 1988: the SUS (Brazil’s unified national public healthcare system), the Family Health Program, the vaccines that protect your children, the SAMU (emergency medical service) that comes to your doorstep when you’re in distress, free medications, organ transplants, and medical treatment provided at no cost.
Policies that lifted millions out of hunger—those that support single mothers, the elderly, people with disabilities, and mothers of children with special needs—could be dismantled. School meal programs could be degraded. Public schools, [all free] federal institutes and universities could be privatized. The training of doctors, engineers, and professionals of all kinds could be undermined and stripped of quality.
Science will lose funding and face renewed persecution, potentially causing us to lose our brightest minds to other countries. We could lose our culture—a source of such joy and wonder, a generator of jobs, and something that enchants the entire world. We could lose our religious freedom and the secular nature of our State.
We could lose our place in the world. Brazil is respected globally, which allows us to conduct business with nations everywhere. If we become a vassal to a single military superpower, we stand to lose markets, jobs and wealth—and we could even be dragged into a war that is not our own. Consider the danger in that.
And most seriously, folks, we could lose our children’s future. The Amazon could vanish in just a few years. Bolsonarism harbors a hatred for the rainforest and its guardians: the Indigenous peoples.
They would rather tear down the forest to make way for soy and cattle, even though it could generate incalculable wealth through biotechnology and medicine, while also keeping our climate stable. If the forest disappears, the rainfall needed for agriculture goes with it—replaced by extreme heat, drought, flooding, failed harvests, and potentially famine and mass migration. Many cities could become uninhabitable. This isn’t something that might happen 50 years from now; it could happen very soon—within the lifetimes of our children.
Folks, if another crisis hits—whether a health crisis like the pandemic, a climate emergency, or a geopolitical upheaval—we already know how this group handles such situations: with incompetence, in opposition to science, and in disregard for human life. 700,000 families know this all too well.
Our entire social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental heritage—built by both right-wing and left-wing governments over decades—could be destroyed in a very short time.
Perhaps you don’t like Lula. Perhaps you believe Brazil is in a bad state. The data suggest otherwise, but I respect your opinion. Still, consider this: why hand the country over to a group implicated in all manner of crimes? To someone with a 30-year documented history of corruption? To an individual under investigation for corruption and money laundering—someone embroiled in countless scandals, who buys mansions with cash siphoned off through the illicit practice of skimming public employees’ salaries? With control of Congress [acquired in the first round vote a few weeks ago], this group could dismantle 40 years of progress. This isn’t “the right”—it is extremism, it is hatred, and it is dangerous.
Think about it: if Lula wins, he serves four years and then moves on. By 2030, new figures may emerge from both sides of the spectrum. Perhaps then we can finally break free from this polarization. But if Flávio wins—with Congress and the Supreme Court completely under their control—this group will wield unlimited power and could remain in charge for decades. Decades in power.
Unlimited power in the hands of such a dangerous group could lead to disastrous consequences. At the very least, it could result in censorship, persecution, and torture. A dictatorship.
Folks, the decision is in our hands. On the 25th, let’s vote for democracy, for Brazil, and for our children. Vote 13. Vote for Lula.
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