Brazil , the worlds fourth-largest democracy, could become the latest country to pledge the growing fraternity of nations flirting with fascist rule on Sunday, when voters are likely to choose a far-right authoritarian as the countrys next president.

Jair Bolsonaro , a congressman who has openly praised Brazils erstwhile military dictatorship and exhibits all the hallmarks of a modern authoritarian , has slipped slightly in the polls in the last week before the election. Still, he holds a strong enough lead to suggest that he will defeat former So Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad of the leftist Workers Party.

Bolsonaro, who was stabbed on the campaign trail in September, has a history of aiming violent rhetoric at his political opponents and Brazils most vulnerable populations. Now, hes on the cusp of bringing the right-wing movements that have triumphed in Europe and the United States through Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the rise of anti-immigrant, xenophobic parties in Germany and elsewhere, and U.S. President Donald Trump to South America. Victory for the candidate known as Brazils Trump could have wide-ranging implications in Latin America and around the world.

Bolsonaros rise shares similarities with those of other right-wing parties and politicians, but given the youth of Brazils current republic, which was only re-established 30 years ago, Bolsonaro is an even greater threat to the democracy he may soon oversee than any of his global peers. A Bolsonaro win could produce the clearest lesson yet in how a ready mix of elite failure, racial and social backlash, and underlying societal tolerance for authoritarianism can pave the way for modern democratic collapse.

Heres a guide to everything you need to know about the man who, barring an Election Day upset, is about to become Brazils next president.

Who is this guy?

A former army captain, Bolsonaro left the force not long after Brazils military dictatorship ended in 1985. In 1990, he won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Brazils National Congress. He has served seven terms since as a largely ineffective legislator from a small party with little influence over Brazilian politics. He is known less for his accomplishments as a lawmaker than for his brash, violent and incendiary rhetoric. This year he joined the right-wing Social Liberal Party and became its nominee for president.

What sort of violent rhetoric?

Bolsonaro once told a fellow congresswoman that she was too ugly to rape . He has said that hed rather have a dead son than a gay one and that hed fight two men on the street if he saw them kissing. He has said Afro-Brazilians are not suitable for procreation, called immigrants scum , and promised to seize protected indigenous and Afro-Brazilian lands in order to turn them over to mining and agriculture interests. He was charged under Brazils judicial system with inciting hatred thanks to his racist, sexist and homophobic statements.

Bolsonaro has also routinely called for violence against his political opponents. In 1999, he said then-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso should be shot . He called for gunning down members and supporters of the Workers Party during a campaign stop earlier this year.

Is he really pro-dictatorship?

To believe he isnt requires a serious faith in a favorite maxim of Trump apologists: Take him seriously, not literally.

As early as 1993, when Brazil was attempting to cement its new democracy into place, Bolsonaro said he was in favor of dictatorship . Hes hardly walked that back since. As recently as 2015, he called the era of Brazilian dictatorship a glorious period. In 2016, he dedicated his vote to impeach then-President Dilma Rousseff, a former anti-dictatorship guerrilla, to the Army colonel who oversaw the program that tortured her while she was in prison.

Bolsonaro, who has even denied that Brazils former military junta qualified as a dictatorship, has also expressed fondness for other Latin American strongmen. He praised former Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet, whose regime was accused of killing at least 3,000 people and torturing 40,000 more. Bolsonaro said that Pinochets only mistake was that he didnt kill enough. And in the 1990s, he said that Brazil should follow the path plotted by then-Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, who shuttered Perus congress, rewrote parts of its constitution, and imprisoned and tortured political opponents.

Bolsonaros running mate, retired Army Gen. Antnio Hamilton Mouro, has refused to rule out the possible return of military rule and openly talked about a military coup in the past. Bolsonaros son Eduardo, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, has talked about using the military to shut down the Supreme Court .

The weekend before the election, Bolsonaro pledged a cleansing never before seen in Brazil and said that red thieves by which he meant his leftist opponents would be banned from the country.

They can either get out or go to jail, he said in a video shown to supporters at a rally in So Paulo.

Hes not kind of a dictator. He is a dictator, said Monica de Bolle, the director of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University. He clearly has zero regard for democratic institutions. He clearly means what he says.

So how did we get here? What explains his popularity?

The short answer is a familiar one: backlash against an inept, self-dealing establishment that has deepened Brazils various interlocking crises. A historic recession that left millions unemployed, a sharp spike in violent crime rates leading to 60,000 homicides in each of the last two years, and a political corruption scandal (called Operation Car Wash) that has implicated hundreds of politicians have all evaporated faith in the Brazilian political system. Bolsonaro has seized on the discontent.

He and his supporters primarily blame the leftist Workers Party, which oversaw Brazils economic boom under ex-President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva and its bust under Rousseff, da Silvas successor, who served from 2011 to 2016. Rousseff was impeached on charges that she illegally manipulated federal accounts to obscure the size of the budget deficit, though her opponents werent solely motivated by issues of truth and justice.

The Workers Party also known as the PT has spent the past four years in the middle of corruption scandals. Da Silva was convicted on money laundering charges in 2017 and imprisoned earlier this year.

Many of these complaints against the PT are valid: Rousseff failed to manage the economy through a downturn that became a full-blown crisis, and the partys links to corruption came out after it had long promised that it would clean up Brazilian politics. The party also did little to address the countrys rampant problems with violent crime. Its shortcomings have eroded faith among many Brazilians in the PTs ability to govern.

But Bolsonaro has helped foment and thrived on the racist, homophobic and sexist backlash against the policies of the Workers Party specifically the lefts efforts to stem poverty through social welfare programs, its embrace of affirmative action to assist women and black Brazilians, and its push to protect and promote LGBTQ and gender equality. Bolsonaro has promised to take back Brazil from the left and to rid it from the PC culture that has coddled marginalized groups .

Its a nationalism of the brand that has won gains across the world, and Bolsonaros movement is explicitly identitarian: On his website, he proclaims that his Brazil is a country that is proud of our colors, and we do not want to import ideologies that destroy our identity. Bolsonaro blasts the PT and Haddad as tools of communism who want to turn Brazil into Venezuela. He and his supporters have used social networks like WhatsApp to go around traditional media and spread a variety of baseless allegations against the party and its voters for instance, claiming that it supports gay pedophilia.

So its all about the Workers Party?