🗳 Election Observatory: Apr. 21

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

Brazil’s 2026 elections are entering a phase in which they can no longer be understood solely as a presidential race. What is unfolding is a broader reconfiguration of political power, involving the federal executive branch and state governments around the country. 

This is increasingly a systemic election — one whose outcome will define not only who governs, but how governance itself will function.

In the presidential election, the race between incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro has consolidated into a highly competitive contest. New polling indicates a statistical tie in a potential second-round runoff between the top two candidates, signaling a marked shift from previous electoral cycles. 

The political center is likely to play a decisive role in determining the outcome.

This environment has been accompanied by an intensification of the judicialization of politics. Investigations and increasingly aggressive narrative disputes are becoming embedded in the pre-campaign landscape, placing pressure on the institutional boundaries of the electoral process. 

The Supreme Court has opened an investigation into Flávio Bolsonaro over alleged defamation against Lula, as well as a separate inquiry into candidate Romeu Zema for attacks on the court itself (more below). This trend is likely to deepen as the campaign progresses.

At the same time, state and local elections are gaining central importance. Fragmentation and uncertainty are widespread at the state level, with many candidacies still undetermined and alliances being negotiated in real time as part of broader national strategies.

The Northeast can no longer be considered a consolidated stronghold of the left and is emerging as a key battleground, with races in states such as Alagoas and Bahia posing risks to Lula’s traditional dominance. Meanwhile, Lula is seeking to expand his presence in traditionally Bolsonaro-aligned states, such as Santa Catarina.

The international dimension of the election is also becoming more pronounced. Recent developments suggest a growing effort to internationalize the electoral narrative, alongside increasing attention (and potential influence) from external actors. Lula recently participated in a meeting in Barcelona with progressive leaders aimed at countering the rise of the global far right and reinforcing multilateralism. 

On the other side, Flávio Bolsonaro’s political camp has signaled the possibility of leveraging its proximity to segments of the MAGA movement in the United States. This includes advocating for new sanctions against Brazilian authorities and the classification of criminal organizations as narcoterrorist groups, in an effort to shape the domestic debate. Through various strategies, both sides are positioning Brazil’s election as part of a broader global contest.

The 2026 election is thus taking shape as a moment of redefinition — of regional power structures, institutional relationships and Brazil’s position in the world. Close observation of this process will be essential to understanding not only the country’s political future, but also its wider implications for the international arena.

Gilmar Mendes, the Supreme Court's longest-serving justice, has asked his colleague Alexandre de Moraes to include Romeu Zema — presidential hopeful and former governor of Minas Gerais — in the so-called “Fake News Inquiry.” Zema published a Muppet-style cartoon mocking the court's entanglement in the Banco Master scandal, in which at least three justices have direct or indirect ties to the now-defunct lender, liquidated in November 2025.

The court has increasingly used its institutional tools to shield itself from criticism as the Master scandal has exposed vulnerabilities in its public standing. The resulting credibility crisis has led even segments of the left to embrace judicial reform, while the far right has called for the impeachment of sitting justices. That pressure, however, is driven less by alleged ethical lapses than by the court’s 2025 conviction of Jair Bolsonaro for leading a coup attempt after the 2022 election.

By targeting Zema, Mendes may have shifted the debate onto terrain favorable to the ex-governor. "We are still in a democracy, where satire is allowed," Zema said Monday. "As governor, I was the butt of many jokes and never tried to curb freedom of speech."

The Fake News Inquiry has now been ongoing for seven years — an unusually long duration. It was originally launched amid escalating attacks on democratic institutions during Bolsonaro’s presidency, including coordinated disinformation campaigns, threats and harassment targeting justices and their families. Critics, however, including the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), argue that the probe has since become a constitutional liability. 

In a February letter to the court, the association warned that the inquiry's ever-expanding scope "undermines legal predictability, weakens legal certainty" and creates the impression of an investigation without clear boundaries.

Rio de Janeiro's state assembly elected Douglas Ruas as its new speaker on Friday in a vote boycotted by the opposition, which argued that the use of an open ballot left lawmakers vulnerable to coercion.

The state's governorship situation has been unsettled since March, when former Governor Cláudio Castro stepped down one day before electoral courts were expected to remove him for deploying state employees as campaign workers in 2022. His lieutenant governor had already departed for a seat on a state audit court, while the previous assembly speaker was ousted for leaking classified information related to an organized crime investigation. This chain of vacancies handed executive authority to Ricardo Couto, head of the state appeals court.

Under succession rules, the assembly speaker is next in line for the governorship — a position of significant political value, given control of Rio de Janeiro's patronage apparatus ahead of a campaign in Brazil's third-most populous state. Whether Ruas ultimately assumes the governorship will depend on a Supreme Court case that was suspended on April 9.

Four months before Brazil's campaign season officially begins, the teams of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro have already filed 44 lawsuits before the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) — most of them against each other, according to finance newspaper Valor.

The volume signals a race that will be fought as much in courtrooms as on the streets. The irony is hard to miss: the same actors who decry judicial interference in politics are also actively drawing the courts into the arena.

Meanwhile, Justice Alexandre de Moraes last week authorized a separate criminal libel investigation into Flávio Bolsonaro, stemming from a January post on X in which he implied Lula had committed crimes ranging from drug trafficking to electoral fraud.

The leftist Rede-Psol federation wants to run former Environment Minister Marina Silva for one of the two Senate seats up for grabs in São Paulo. However, the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB), an ally, also wants to field two former Lula cabinet members: Simone Tebet and Márcio França.

Research from the Getulio Vargas Foundation, based on election data from 1998 to 2022, shows that in elections where states elect two senators, governor-backed coalitions secure at least one seat roughly half the time and both seats in 29% of cases. This suggests that the left's best-case scenario may be winning a single Senate spot. If three candidates split the vote in a first-past-the-post system, the right could capture both seats.

With President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Finance Minister Dario Durigan back from trips to Europe — and, in Durigan's case, the US — the government is expected to unveil a plan to address Brazil's debt crisis.

According to Serasa Experian, 81.7 million Brazilians — roughly half the adult population — have recently defaulted on at least one debt. Among businesses, 8.7 million companies are in a similar position. The government believes that chronic indebtedness helps explain why voters have yet to feel the benefits of rising incomes and low unemployment. A record 29% of household income is now being spent on debt repayment.

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