🗳 Election Observatory: May 26

— by Paulo Abrão, executive director of the Washington Brazil Office

The past week revealed growing fragmentation within Brazil’s opposition camp, as well as an intensifying dispute over centrist voters. The political impact of corruption allegations involving Flávio Bolsonaro and Banco Master reopened uncertainties that had appeared partially stabilized within the polarization between Lula's and Bolsonaro's camps.

Polls released after the leak of information regarding the relationship between Flávio Bolsonaro and Daniel Vorcaro, the jailed owner of Banco Master, show a deterioration in the senator’s candidacy. 

It is still too early to measure the structural effects of the scandal on voter behavior, but the data suggest that the episode directly hit what had been the Bolsonaro movement’s main political advantage so far: the statistical tie with Lula in the polls and the relative stability of Flávio Bolsonaro’s presidential bid, despite high public rejection rates.

The right’s reaction to the episode reveals an environment of increasing fragmentation. Sectors of the Bolsonaro movement have begun privately discussing the possibility of replacing Flávio Bolsonaro with his stepmother Michelle Bolsonaro, while new candidacies are emerging within the center-right and moderate right. 

The possible entry of former presidential candidate Aécio Neves of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), combined with the candidacy of former Supreme Court Justice Joaquim Barbosa (representing the Christian Democracy party), signals not only attempts to occupy available electoral space, but also the growing difficulty of building a hegemonic leadership alternative to President Lula.

At the same time, the government is seeking to shift the center of the electoral debate toward social and economic issues. The government’s negotiations with Congress over a proposal to gradually reduce the workweek without salary cuts are part of a broader strategy to reconnect with urban sectors and workers pressured by the rising cost of living. The issue carries strong electoral appeal, but is also likely to deepen divisions between markets, unions and different business sectors.

The institutional and international dimensions of the dispute are also intensifying. The advance of regulations over digital platforms and artificial intelligence, combined with conflicts involving Supreme Court decisions and US-based technology companies, is further internationalizing the debate over freedom of expression, digital sovereignty and democratic integrity in Brazil.

The political opposition is fragmenting. Lula remains the sole major candidate within the center-left camp. Some political analysts are already beginning to project a possible (though still unlikely) first-round re-election victory for the president.

Multiple polls have come out since The Intercept Brasil revealed that Senator Flávio Bolsonaro asked for money — and obtained at least USD 10.6 million — from Daniel Vorcaro, owner of the fraud-ridden Banco Master. Flávio lost 4 to 5 points in first-round polling and went from a statistical tie with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to bring at a 4 to 7-point disadvantage, depending on polling methodology.

At this point, however, the polls are measuring shock rather than actual voter intent. The Flávio camp is trying to dispel calls for him to withdraw and put someone else in his place, saying the former president’s son has time to bounce back. And, not without reason, the senator's allies say anti-Lula voters will gravitate towards him regardless of any scandal.

That presumption will be tested in the coming weeks, especially if more revelations come to light. Still, the final answer about the candidacy remains where it has always been: in the mind of former President Jair Bolsonaro, Flávio's father and leader of the far right. 

The crisis in the Flávio Bolsonaro camp is prompting more politicians to throw their hats into the presidential ring. Last week, former Supreme Court Justice Joaquim Barbosa was named the nominee for the Christian Democracy party. Now Congressman Aécio Neves may follow.

Neves belongs to the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), but his name was approved by Cidadania, an allied party with which the PSDB shares a federation. Whether his own party will back the candidacy remains unclear. Neves is a long shot, but his run could breathe some life into the PSDB, which went from being Brazil's dominant center-right force in the 1990s and 2000s to a marginal player on the political chessboard.

It would be Neves's second presidential race. He lost in 2014 to incumbent Dilma Rousseff by what was then the tightest margin in Brazilian presidential history. In an unprecedented move for the country, Neves challenged the result and demanded a recount. He later said he did so merely to "irritate" Rousseff, but his move helped push fringe conspiracy theories into the mainstream.

The House moved on Monday to resolve the central sticking point over a constitutional amendment bill that would end the country's six-day workweek. Speaker Hugo Motta announced a phased timeline for cutting the standard work week without reducing pay. Under the plan, agreed after a meeting between Motta and President Lula, the transition would unfold in two stages: a reduction from 44 to 42 hours this year, followed by a further cut to 40 hours within 12 months, beginning 60 days after the amendment is promulgated.

This push to reduce the workweek is one of the government's flagship initiatives ahead of the 2026 election and will likely clear Congress. Economists, however, are split on the impacts it will have on the economy, with some contending that without massive productivity gains, Brazil's GDP will take a severe hit.

Brazil's Supreme Federal Court is preparing legal countermeasures after a court in the United States allowed Justice Alexandre de Moraes to be served by email. The justice is the target of a lawsuit filed in Florida by social media platform Rumble and the Trump Media Group, both of which accuse him of ordering the suspension of accounts belonging to Brazilians living in the US — users the Brazil’s Supreme Court says are accused of antidemocratic attacks against the tribunal.

President Lula signed two decrees last week granting Brazil's data protection agency sweeping new powers over social media platforms — enacting regulations for Big Tech after years of failing to do so through a reluctant Congress. One measure holds companies liable for "systemic failure" to remove a fixed list of criminal content, from terrorism to child sexual abuse, and the other requires the swift takedown of non-consensual intimate images and banning AI-generated deepfakes of a sexual nature.

Both take effect in 60 days, formalizing a partial 2025 Supreme Court ruling that weakened platforms' immunity for user content, though questions linger over whether the previously toothless agency can enforce them and whether parts of the decrees, framed around child and women's protection months before October's election, will survive legal challenges.

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