RIO DE JANEIRO — A new Netflix series about a sprawling corruption investigation has muscled its way into Brazil’s heated politics, outraging supporters of a leftist former president who is trying to make a comeback and stirring debate about how closely a docudrama should adhere to the facts.

The series, “The Mechanism,” has drawn heat since it was released on March 23. Critics say its inaccuracies are unfair to a former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is the leading candidate in the polls for the election this fall. Others see in the show a more or less fair, if depressing, depiction of an intricate investigation that has so far seen more than 100 people convicted, including senior political figures like Mr. da Silva.

Still others say the publicity — however negative — has only been a boon for Netflix, and lament the frivolity of talking about a television show instead of poverty, violence, environmental conflicts and the myriad other challenges that face Brazil, Latin America’s most populous nation.

The debate has been fierce.

Paulo Roberto Pires, a left-leaning columnist at the newsmagazine Época, called the series misleading, adding that it reduced complex political, historical and social issues to the fight against corruption.