# Can Brazil’s Democracy Withstand Another Polarized Presidential Election? **Date de l'événement :** 01/10/2026 * Publié le 01/10/2026 ### Date 02/10/2026 ## Chapô **Cet article est aussi [disponible en Français](https://conference.sciencespo.fr/content/2026-10-01/les-institutions-bresiliennes-peuvent-elles-resister-a-une-election-presidentielle-polarisee_SDIAk497cphvPYPGAsBF).** **Brazil’s presidential election is unfolding in a climate marked by deep polarization, distrust of political institutions, and growing concern over both domestic scandals and foreign interference. Roberta Picussa, Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher at CEVIPOF, Sciences Po, analyzes how these tensions are shaping the campaign, from the persistence of the Lula-Bolsonaro divide to the rise of outsider candidates and the crisis surrounding the Supreme Federal Court. Can Brazil’s democratic institutions withstand the pressures surrounding the 2026 presidential election?** ## Corps du texte The first round of Brazil's general election will take place on Sunday, October 4. Two candidates lead the polls: Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro. Lula is seeking a fourth term as president, running for the Workers’ Party (PT) in an alliance with two other center-left parties. Flávio is a senator and one of the sons of former President Jair Bolsonaro. He is running for the far-right Liberal Party (PL) in place of his father, who is barred from running and in prison, convicted of attempting a coup d'état and other crimes. The presidential election is held at the same time as legislative elections, which renew all the seats in the Chamber of Deputies and part of the Senate. Voters also elect governors and state deputies on the same ballot. The presidency, Senate seats, and governorships are decided under majoritarian rules, while seats in the Chamber of Deputies are filled by proportional representation. Voting is compulsory, and a second round is held only for executive offices in which no candidate wins more than 50% of valid votes. The second round will take place on October 25. Lula leads the polls: support for him has ranged from 37% to 41% since March. Flávio has fluctuated between 31% and 37%, according to the BBC's poll aggregator. As the election approaches, Flávio has gradually narrowed the numerical gap with Lula. For the second round, projections show a statistical tie, with Flávio numerically ahead. Lula and Flávio’s poll numbers, however, tell only part of this election’s story. The race has been marked by high rejection of the two front-runners and, paradoxically, by the difficulty challengers have had in gaining traction. Two other factors complicate the picture: a major corruption scandal involving Banco Master, a small Brazilian bank, politicians, and members of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), and tensions over possible U.S. interference in Brazil's elections. ### Electoral Polarization: A Supply-and-Demand Problem Lula and Flávio both have loyal electorates, but they also face high rejection: 55% for Lula and 56% for Flávio, according to the Quaest polling Institute. The contest between their supporters reveals not only political polarization but also how heavily Brazil's political establishment depends on personalistic leaders. At 80, Lula is once again running for president. This will be his final election, and there is still no clear successor within the Workers’ Party (PT) or on the broader left. In this election, only parties with no representation in the Chamber of Deputies are competing with Lula for votes on the left: minor parties such as the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) and Popular Unity (UP), both of which struggle to reach 1% in the polls. Left-wing parties represented in Congress that had fielded more competitive candidates in previous elections — the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), and the Sustainability Network (Rede) — have decided to support Lula this time. Flávio, for his part, is running as a substitute for his father, who is barred from the race due to criminal and electoral offenses. His candidacy disappointed some right-wing parties and other sectors of society that had hoped to see Tarcísio de Freitas, the governor of São Paulo and an ally of Bolsonaro, run for the presidency. The choice of Flávio was widely read as a signal from Jair that his political base belongs to the family. There had been some expectation that a candidate would emerge to represent the share of the electorate that rejects both Lula and the Bolsonaro family and is tired of the conflict-ridden political climate created by political and affective polarization around these figures. Among Brazil's established parties, only the Social Democratic Party (PSD) fielded a candidate as an alternative to this polarization: Ronaldo Caiado. He is a traditional right-wing politician with a career spanning more than 40 years; his most recent office was governor of Goiás. Caiado has not proved electorally viable so far: his support has ranged from 3% to 5%. In this context, the outsiders in the race have drawn attention — candidates from parties on the margins of the system, with no prior experience in political office: Augusto Cury, who is in third place in the polls, and Renan Santos, who is tied with Caiado. ### The Outsiders in the Race Santos was the first to gain prominence in the polls, even before the official start of the campaign, when he was already polling level with the more experienced Caiado. He is running for Missão (Mission), a far-right party created in 2026 with roots in the Free Brazil Movement (MBL), which Santos founded in 2014 to lead a series of demonstrations calling for the impeachment of then-President Dilma Rousseff. The movement remains active today, backing candidates for legislative office and training grassroots activists. Santos's campaign centers on a radical anti-establishment message. He is very active on social media, where he produces videos in language that is blunt, mocking, and technical all at once, and compares himself to figures such as Argentine President Javier Milei and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. That style was on full display in a televised candidates' debate early in the campaign, when Santos insulted rival candidates and their supporters and promised that, once in office, there would be a “bloodbath” against criminal factions in Brazil, such as the PCC and Comando Vermelho. Among his main proposals is the adoption of what he calls “Enemy Criminal Law,” a distinct penal framework for people linked to criminal factions. On paper, the proposal is presented in legal and technical terms. But his slogan for the policy is blunter: "arrest, kill" (prendeu, matou), chanted by him and his supporters at campaign rallies. His support in the polls has held steady between 3% and 4% since March. Augusto Cury is a very different kind of outsider from Santos. A psychiatrist, he built his career and reputation as an author of self-help books, a highly popular genre in Brazil. He announced his intention to run for president without any political movement behind him, and even before joining Avante, a small center-right party. (In Brazil, candidates must belong to a political party to run for office.) His campaign gained traction after he took part in a televised presidential debate that neither of the front-runners, Lula and Flávio, attended. He was seen as a counterpoint to Santos: both came from outside politics, but while Santos displayed harsh and radical rhetoric, Cury presented himself as someone capable of overcoming political divisions with composure. His rise in the polls was rapid: he jumped from 2% to 10% within days of the debate. One of Cury's great advantages is that, coming from outside politics, he has managed to present himself as outside the polarization between Lula and Flávio. A central message of his campaign is presenting himself as a “bridge” candidate rather than a “centrist” one — a two-pronged strategy: it distances him from ideological labels, and it shows that he can help tone down political conflict, something many Brazilians, worn down by constant political attacks, are looking for. Voters’ sympathy for candidates from outside politics is no surprise. A series of surveys conducted by the Quaest Institute in 2026 asked what would be the best outcome for the election; among respondents who did not want either Lula or the Bolsonaro family to win, an average of 22.2% preferred the victory of someone from outside politics, compared with 16.6% who preferred a moderate candidate outside the polarization. What these numbers do not explain is why they prefer outsiders. Focus-group research on voters’ perceptions of outsiders in presidential elections, conducted in 2025 by Brazil’s Institute in Democratic Representation and Legitimacy (INCT ReDem), had already identified an intense desire for new candidates and high rejection of career politicians. Consistent with this, candidates’ anti-establishment rhetoric resonated strongly with participants. However, doubts about outsiders’ electoral viability and their ability to govern, combined with broader skepticism that Brazil’s political system can change at all, limit their appeal. On the demand side, this skepticism seems to explain why, even amid such strong rejection of Lula and Flávio, no outsider has proved viable. On the supply side, it is also striking how little effort — or interest — established parties have shown in offering alternatives: Caiado, a veteran politician, also faces high rejection. What's more, of the seven right-wing parties that make up the largest bloc in the National Congress, six chose to remain neutral in the presidential race, while the established left-wing parties have all rallied around Lula. The result is that, with fewer than 10 days to go before the first round, all the candidates challenging Lula and Flávio together account for about 13% of voting intentions. The one who stood out most was outsider Cury, who reached 10% in early September but failed to sustain that level for long. The paradox is that rejection of the front-runners is so strong that, rather than opening space for an alternative, the opposite has happened: as the election nears, tactical voting is on the rise, driven by fears that one of the two could win outright in the first round. According to the polls, that outcome is unlikely, but it remains conceivable given the share of respondents who still describe themselves as undecided, around 8%. It is a small share, but in a tight race, how these voters ultimately choose, together with uncertainty over whether they will turn out to vote, keeps the possibility alive. ### The Banco Master Case and Its Fallout for Flávio’s Campaign and the Supreme Federal Court Another factor weighing on the race is the corruption scandal involving Banco Master, its former controlling shareholder, Daniel Vorcaro, and several public officials. Vorcaro is in jail and under investigation for multibillion-dollar financial fraud, corruption of public officials, and other crimes. The case drew nationwide attention in November 2025, when Brazil’s Central Bank ordered the bank’s liquidation and the Federal Police carried out an operation against the group. In December, oversight of the investigation passed to the Supreme Federal Court (STF), given the possible involvement of officials with special jurisdiction, a constitutional provision under which certain officials can only be tried by higher courts. The case hit Flávio Bolsonaro directly. In May 2026, the news outlet Intercept Brasil published messages in which the senator, apologetically, pressed Vorcaro for R$134 million (about US$25.8 million) to help finance a film about his father’s life, titled Dark Horse. Flávio denied the banker’s involvement before the story broke; afterward, he acknowledged the contacts but said he was unaware of the bank’s irregularities. Days later, it emerged that Flávio had also visited Vorcaro at his home following the banker’s first arrest. In the aftermath, Flávio fell in the polls and lost significant support: evangelical leaders did not embrace his candidacy the way they had his father’s, and he was unable to form an alliance with any other party. Even so, he recovered in the polls in the following months. ### The Supreme Federal Court Faces a Crisis of Credibility Since the case reached the Supreme Court, revelations about Vorcaro’s ties to STF justices have fed a credibility crisis within the Court itself. Documents and messages obtained by the Federal Police, although under seal, began to leak to the press in fragments, amplifying the scandal’s political fallout and raising questions about the Court’s own conduct. The crisis took on a new dimension in September 2026, when a Federal Police report surfaced attributing alleged communications between Justice Alexandre de Moraes and Vorcaro. Under mounting political pressure, the Court's president ordered the seal lifted on the entire case file, and new reports of alleged involvement by other justices and officials have emerged almost daily since, a trend expected to continue through Election Day. This crisis matters because the Supreme Federal Court is the body responsible for interpreting and applying the Constitution and ensuring its principles are upheld. The Court was decisive in institutionally containing Bolsonaro’s authoritarian turn — including by convicting him and his accomplices of attempting a coup — a moment regarded as a striking display of Brazilian democratic resilience. Precisely because of that role, the Court came under sustained attack from Bolsonaro and his supporters during and after his presidency, with Moraes singled out as a particular target. In this climate, criticism of how certain investigations were handled, or of individual justices’ conduct — voiced by groups and figures outside the far right — tended to be made cautiously, so as not to weaken the institution or lend credibility to the far right’s narrative against it. Seeing STF justices, Moraes above all, implicated in the Banco Master case now discredits the institution as a whole, with one side effect being the re-energizing of Bolsonaro’s base ahead of the election. Flávio’s campaign accuses the Court of corruption and of having convicted his father to help elect Lula — a narrative that seeks to tie the Court’s scandal to the current government, which is itself facing media scrutiny over allies implicated in this and other cases under investigation. This erosion of the STF’s standing carries consequences beyond the election. If Flávio wins, there are fears of a return to an authoritarian political project that would face a discredited Court, less able to serve as a check than it once was. And the risk posed by this institutional weakness is not confined to domestic politics, as shown by the pressure the Trump administration has been exerting on Brazil's electoral process. ### U.S. Pressure Raises Concerns About Electoral Interference Another factor straining the race, though it reaches well beyond it, is the threat of interference by the Trump administration. In August 2026, the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN) sent a report to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the body responsible for organizing Brazil’s elections, warning that the possibility of U.S. interference had reached a critical level. Trump’s policy of treating the Americas as a sphere of U.S. influence became explicit in late 2025, formally set out in what has been called the "Trump Corollary." Even earlier, in July 2025, he had already signaled this approach by attempting to interfere in Brazil’s justice system, tying a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods to Jair Bolsonaro’s trial before the STF. Eduardo Bolsonaro, Flávio’s brother, is one of the principal architects behind Trump administration measures that harm Brazilian trade and interfere with the country’s sovereignty. In early 2025, Eduardo left his seat in the Chamber of Deputies to live in the United States, seeking political support to influence the outcome of his father’s trial. His role in this effort is widely known in Brazil, and it has already been the subject of a court ruling: the STF convicted him of coercion in the course of judicial proceedings. The Bolsonaro family’s alignment with Trump gives Lula an opportunity to present himself as a defender of national sovereignty and an opponent of U.S. interventionism, a posture evident in his speech at the UN General Assembly in New York on September 22. The scale of this external pressure adds yet another layer of tension to Brazil's election and to the crisis at the Supreme Federal Court, once again putting the country’s democratic resilience to the test. ### Thématique `#Géopolitique` **Licence :** `#CC-BY-ND (Attribution, Pas de modification)` **Langue :** `#Anglais` --- ### Navigation pour IA - [Index de tous les contenus](https://conference.sciencespo.fr/llms.txt) - [Plan du site (Sitemap)](https://conference.sciencespo.fr/sitemap.xml) - [Retour à l'accueil](https://conference.sciencespo.fr/)