Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is set to make a globe-trotting start to 2022 as he ramps up his campaign to defeat Brazil’s far-right leader, Jair Bolsonaro, with a series of international trips to the US, China, Russia and Mexico.

Twenty years after being elected Brazil’s first working-class president, in 2002, the veteran leftwinger is gearing up for an electrifying bid to reclaim power in next October’s presidential election.

The Guardian understands that Lula, 76, is likely to formally announce his candidacy in March, shortly after his Workers’ party (PT) celebrates the 42nd anniversary of its foundation on 10 February 1980.

Simultaneously, the politician, who governed from 2003 to 2010 during the early years of a commodity-fuelled boom, will make a series of overseas trips that allies say are designed to repair the South American country’s international reputation and denounce Bolsonaro’s threat to Brazil’s young democracy.

“President Lula needs to travel the world to rebuild the bridges that were destroyed by Bolsonaro and to denounce the great risk Bolsonaro continues to pose to Brazilian democracy,” said Alexandre Padilha, a former Lula minister and PT congressman.

Lula’s first trip is expected to be to Mexico in January, where he is likely to be received by its leftwing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. During a recent visit to Argentina, Lula was welcomed by its leftwing leaders, Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and talked up the possibility of a progressive revival across Latin America.

Trips to the US, China and Russia are also planned for the first quarter of 2022 while visits to Italy, Portugal and the UK are also on the cards. In November, Lula made a four-nation tour of Europe, during which he met the now chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, and was invited to the Élysée Palace by Emmanuel Macron.

Padilha said it was essential that Lula alerted the world over fears Bolsonaro might refuse to recognise the election result just as his political idol, Donald Trump, did in the US. “This isn’t just an ordinary electoral battle. We are going to face a historic movement in which a neofascist movement in Brazil led by Bolsonaro must be defeated.”

With less than a year until the election, Lula appears poised to beat Bolsonaro, whose ratings have plunged amid soaring inflation and a devastating Covid crisis that has killed more than 615,000 people and hammered the economy. One recent poll gave Lula a 27-point advantage over Bolsonaro and suggested he was close to a first-round victory.

Cláudio Couto, a political scientist from the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said much could change between now and the 2 October vote. “But everything suggests that at the very least Lula has a place in the second round. The question is, who will join him?”

Most observers still believe the answer is Bolsonaro, who retains a hardcore support base of about 20% of voters and hopes Auxílio Brasil, a new social welfare programme, will win him back support among poor people.

But Bolsonaro’s chances have been dented by a rightwing challenge from his former justice minister Sergio Moro, who resigned from the cabinet in April 2020 accusing the president of trying to meddle in the federal police. Moro, a former judge who helped force Lula from the 2018 presidential campaign before joining Bolsonaro’s government, recently announced his return to politics and appears third in polls.

Couto said a “fratricidal war” between Moro and Bolsonaro could boost Lula’s campaign by splitting the Brazilian right. “I suspect Bolsonaro is probably very irritated, particularly with Moro. Bolsonaro and his sons have gone on the attack against him and this shows that they’ve grasped the danger of Moro stealing his place [in the second round].”

Couto said Lula’s globetrotting was partly about re-engaging with foreign governments before what would be his third term as president.

Mostly, however, the journeys were aimed at a domestic audience with Lula trying to contrast his statesmanlike travels with the international isolation of Bolsonaro, who has alienated key international partners including Joe Biden’s US, Xi Jinping’s China and EU leaders such as France’s Macron.

Couto said Bolsonaro was considered a global “espalha rodinha”(pain in the neck) – “the kind of guy who makes everyone flee when he joins conversation”.

“This is a trump card for Lula,” Couto said, adding that even Brazil’s economic elites, who helped elect Bolsonaro, now realised Lula commanded international respect, while Bolsonaro was widely rejected for his handling of coronavirus and the environment.

Padilha said the world saw Lula as “a popular and experienced politician who favours dialogue … and was interested in protecting the environment and reducing poverty and inequality. Bolsonaro’s image is of destruction. Of a far-right leader who is anti-environment [and] anti-vaccine and condemned Brazil to the greatest human tragedy in our history.”