The judge who helped convict Jair Bolsonaro is caught up in a crisis that could benefit his son and damage Lula

• Marina Silva on Flávio Bolsonaro: He will try to finish his father’s ‘perverse project’ to destroy the Amazon

Thundering to a crowd of thousands of far-right supporters in São Paulo on 7 September, Brazil’s Independence Day, the senator Flávio Bolsonaro focused less on his opponent in the presidential election, the leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, than on someone who is not running at all.

“Whoever votes for Lula is voting for Alexandre de Moraes,” Bolsonaro shouted, referring to the shaven-headed supreme court justice once described as “Voldemort” by Elon Musk.