🇵🇱 Poles apart

Romeu Zema, the former governor of Minas Gerais, was the latest guest in Debating Brazil, an event cycle hosted by The Brazilian Report and Novo Selo Comunicação that brings presidential hopefuls to address the foreign diplomatic corps directly. (Last week, we hosted Chief Electoral Justice Kassio Nunes Marques.)

The format is designed to create space for conversation — one where Brazil's partners can grasp the issues raised by the country's political brokers and ask their own questions about what shapes their relationship with Latin America's biggest economy. Beyond the candidates' remarks, participants get time for direct contact to size up who Brazil's political leaders really are.

A former two-term governor and former retail executive, Zema is running well behind the front-runners, between 2% and 5%. He counters with two arguments:

The latter point is a veiled jab at Flávio Bolsonaro, who for now sits comfortably in second place — and the runoff berth that comes with it. Flávio's ties to Banco Master CEO Daniel Vorcaro surfaced in mid-May, and many political actors expect more to come as Election Day nears.

If he proves pollsters wrong again, Zema told the room he would oversee a shift in Brazil's foreign policy: “It's crystal clear that, under the Workers’ Party administration, Brazil distanced itself from the West. I want it to be close to the West again.” The former governor promised to restore OECD accession as a priority and pursue even-handed ties with every country. 

On domestic issues, Zema laid out his program, presenting the diplomats with three priorities:

Zema cast himself as the candidate most willing to confront the Banco Master affair and the class of “untouchable” power brokers tangled in it, noting that he lives in the same city as Vorcaro but has never met him. He defended tougher anti-corruption laws, framing graft by a public official as an aggravated offense akin to treason.

His “shock against overspending” bundles four reforms: “privatize everything,” approving a new pension reform, overhauling public service and a review of social benefits, including cutting payments to recipients who repeatedly turn down work. 

Zema leaned on the El Salvador model he studied first-hand last year: terrorist designation for criminal factions, 25-year minimum sentences without benefits and mass incarceration. Brazil's 40,000-plus annual murders (42,600 in 2025 alone), he said, amount to a normalized civil war the country has learned to treat as routine.

As our LatAm Report has covered over the years, the tough-on-crime policies enacted in El Salvador by President Nayib Bukele draw heavy criticism for violating human rights and denying suspects due process. They are also wildly popular and have inspired copycats across the region.

Europe arrived in Brasília this week with pledges in hand and a pointed message about who Brazil should trust with its mineral wealth. On Tuesday, the EU and ApexBrasil, Brazil's trade and investment promotion agency, convened the second Brazil-EU Investment Forum, built around energy transition, digital infrastructure and the critical minerals that feed both.

“We don't want to imprison, we don't want to impose. We want to empower,” said Jozef Síkela, the EU commissioner for international partnerships, contrasting the purchase of raw ore with a partnership to refine it on Brazilian soil…

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