🗳 Election Observatory: Oct. 13

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

With two weeks to go before the runoff, Brazil’s election has acquired a new layer of tension: the referee is taking up almost as much space as the players. The decisions of Kassio Nunes Marques, who heads the Superior Electoral Court, especially regarding content favorable to Lula and campaign material from Flávio Bolsonaro, have turned the Electoral Court itself into a central political issue. 

The problem is no longer only the substance of each ruling, but the perception of asymmetry. When the president of the court acts alone against the majority position of his own colleagues, the risk is that the debate over who should win the election becomes contaminated by another question: who is ensuring that the contest is being refereed fairly?

At the same time, Lula is trying to regain political initiative. The large demonstrations over the weekend showed a left once again mobilized in the streets, while the government is using its institutional agenda to put social issues back at the center of the campaign. The proposal to end the six-day workweek is the clearest example. Flávio Bolsonaro, who initially rejected the change, reversed course and announced that he would vote in favor of it. 

When one candidate is forced to embrace an issue set by his opponent, it is a sign that the campaign has succeeded in shifting the terrain of the contest.

Lula is also betting on the power of the presidency to set the agenda. The new debt-relief program for individual microentrepreneurs shows a campaign trying to speak directly to small businesses, self-employed workers, and indebted families. 

Measures announced so close to the vote clearly risk being interpreted as electoral maneuvering, but there is also an undeniable political fact: after weeks spent reacting to the Supreme Court crisis and a succession of scandals, the government is once again driving the debate. In a race that seemed to be moving by inertia, recovering the ability to take the initiative may prove decisive.

Flávio Bolsonaro, by contrast, is increasingly playing the clock. Leading in the polls, he is avoiding debates, limiting his exposure, and betting on the stability of an advantage that has already shown signs of narrowing in some surveys. 

Lula is pursuing the opposite strategy: he wants crowded streets, direct confrontation, and new issues capable of moving an election that remains open. The contrast between them is now strategic as well — one is trying to freeze the race; the other needs to disrupt it.

The final stretch of the runoff will therefore unfold on three fronts: votes, agenda, and legitimacy. Lula needs to turn mobilization and initiative into electoral recovery; Flávio needs to prevent the race from changing; and the Electoral Court needs to convince the country that it remains the referee, not a player. The closer the result, the more important all three dimensions will become on the day after the election.

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Kassio Nunes Marques, the Supreme Court justice who heads Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court, took down a pro-Lula WhatsApp channel on Sunday. Hours later, Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva, the court’s inspector general, put it back up. On Tuesday, Nunes Marques doubled down and pulled it again.

The duel caps two weeks of rulings that tilt the race toward Flávio Bolsonaro. Nunes Marques ordered a Lula rally clip removed, kept up Flávio ads tying Lula’s son to a pension fraud, and froze three cases in which colleagues had voted 5-1 to pull Flávio’s posts. One fellow justice called the maneuver a “handball goal.”

Jair Bolsonaro appointed Nunes Marques, who also shares a scandal with Bolsonaro’s son. Flávio sought money from Daniel Vorcaro, the jailed owner of the collapsed Banco Master. Investigators read messages seized from Vorcaro’s phone as placing the justice at a party the banker hosted, where sex workers were present, though the messages never explicitly name him. His office has not commented.

Comparisons with Alexandre de Moraes, the court’s 2022 chief, fall flat. Back then, Jair Bolsonaro attacked voting machines for months and openly threatened to attempt a coup (which he did after losing the election). Moraes’s toughest measures passed unanimously and also hit Lula. Nunes Marques rules alone, against his peers.

Supporters of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva packed the streets of several state capitals on Sunday and Monday, from São Paulo’s Paulista Avenue and Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beachfront to Natal and Recife, in the Northeast. 

Hard counts are scarce, because presidential security barred the drones normally used to tally crowds. Even so, the rallies were arguably the biggest leftist demonstrations in decades. One estimate put the Paulista crowd alone at about 261,000.

Now the left waits for polls due Wednesday and Thursday to see whether the push has narrowed Flávio Bolsonaro’s lead ahead of the Oct. 25 runoff. Datafolha is the one to watch. It was the only major pollster in the field last week, and it had Flávio ahead 52-48. 

Flávio is betting on inertia. With two weeks left, a stalled race favors the front-runner. But a PoderData poll has narrowed his 6-point lead to just 2 since last week.

Flávio Bolsonaro, who dismissed a constitutional amendment ending Brazil’s six-day workweek just last week, said on Tuesday he would vote for it. The Senate is set to hold a first-round vote on Wednesday.

The reversal gives President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva a win, as he had pressed his runoff rival to take a stand. For most of September, a crisis engulfing the Supreme Court dominated the news while the government watched from the sidelines. Now it is using the power of the pen to set the agenda.

Flávio’s campaign coordinator, Senator Rogério Marinho, had worked to delay the vote and wrote a rival bill that Flávio called “infinitely better.” On Tuesday, Flávio said he would follow “the will of the majority of the people.”

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva unveiled a relief package for Brazil’s 17.6 million individual microentrepreneurs on Tuesday, 12 days before a runoff in which he trails Flávio Bolsonaro. The plan forgives BRL 12.6 billion in tax debt owed by 3.6 million of them, pending congressional approval, and promises grants of up to BRL 5,000 if he wins re-election. Its name, Prospera MEI, borrows Flávio’s theme; he has promised a Ministry of Prosperity.

Flávio Bolsonaro said on Tuesday he has no plans to attend Sunday’s runoff debate, hosted by broadcaster Band and a media pool. His team is weighing only the final one, on Globo on Oct. 23. Flávio had promised to debate President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who committed on Oct. 5 to runoff debates. Flávio already turned down the runoff’s first debate, which was scheduled for Oct. 11. Band has confirmed the debate remains on — so if Flávio skips, Lula would be facing an empty lectern.

Lula skipped the first-round debates to protect his lead in the polls. Flávio stayed away too, having said he would attend only if Lula did. Flávio’s first-place finish changed the calculus for both men.