Democracy at Risk: Brazil Faces Uncertain Future

Brazil is heading towards dark times. On October 4, almost 125 million Brazilians went to the polls to vote for president, the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, state governors, and state representatives, and over 33 million did not show up. Abstention in the first round of the 2026 elections reached 21.08%. This abstention rate is the second highest since the country’s redemocratization, surpassed only by the 1998 elections. It reflects tumultuous elections marked by scandals, heavy investment in fake news on social networks, a Bolsonarism that remains strong despite Jair’s imprisonment, and a weakened left.

The first-round results already show that Brazil will have a Senate that is mostly right-wing and far-right. The right won 33 senators, expanding its bloc to at least 50 seats out of the 81 available. Some parties considered centrist, however, tend to vote more with the right, which could increase the ability to pass legislation that attacks human, social, and labor rights.

The Partido Liberal (PL), the party of senator and presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, increased its leadership in the Chamber of Deputies, became the party with the largest advantage, and secured the most available seats in the Senate. The party won 121 federal deputies and 19 senators. The Workers’ Party (PT), led by Lula, who is running for re-election, ended up with the second-largest bloc in the Chamber, with 70 seats.

Jair Bolsonaro’s ally and ultraconservative youth icon Nikolas Ferreira was re-elected in Minas Gerais with 3,119,318 votes, becoming the most-voted candidate in the country’s history. Nikolas is known for his transphobic statements, attacks on LGBT+ and reproductive rights, and personal connections to corruption scandals that have broken out in recent months, involving Banco Master and several politicians and Supreme Court members.

Flávio Bolsonaro, son of Jair Bolsonaro—who is also personally involved in the Banco Master corruption case—has emerged as the winner of the first round of Brazil’s presidential election with 47.03 percent of the vote. His opponent, Lula, Brazil’s current president, came in second with 45.16 percent. The runoff election will take place on October 25. We also recommend our translation of an article by Odilon Caldeira Neto, professor and coordinator of the Observatory of the Far Right, on the dangers of Flávio winning these elections.

As Natalia Viana explains in her column for Agência Pública, “the Brazil coming out of the first round is flirting with a permanent institutional crisis. If elected, Flávio would have a bloc of 28 in the Senate and 121 in the Chamber of Deputies just from the PL, his party, a historic performance. But Flávio Bolsonaro is a candidate with many skeletons in the closet. He is entangled in various scandals and corruption cases that we can only glimpse today, but that will deepen in the coming months. And this will necessarily lead to a government tainted by revelations from its first to its last day,” she analyzes.

Even if Lula wins the runoff and is re-elected president, he will have great difficulty governing with this composition of the National Congress. The differences in government proposals between Flávio Bolsonaro and Lula da Silva are huge: Lula proposes expanding the role of the state, strengthening social policies, and expanding labor rights. Flávio advocates for a liberal economic agenda, tax cuts, and a punitivist approach to public security. Among his proposals is “chemical castration” as a penalty for rapists.

Another central point of divergence concerns the fate of Bolsonaristas convicted of attacking democracy after the 2022 election. While Flávio promises to grant amnesty to those convicted for the January 8 attack and to get his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), out of jail, Lula argues for maintaining punishment for those responsible.

The new Senate is also targeting the Supreme Court and is already calling for the removal of Minister Alexandre de Moraes, who jailed Jair Bolsonaro, who is also implicated in the Banco Master scandals.

Politics is no longer based on concrete reality, data, numbers, or collective future projects

These are definitely not ordinary elections for Brazil. There was no televised debate because candidates and broadcasters could not agree on rules, and campaigns took place mainly on social networks—which also disadvantaged Lula, since a survey by the Observatory of Big Techs, from NetLab at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), identified irregular ads on Meta, Kwai, and Google, as well as irregular recommendations of candidate videos by TikTok and YouTube. The research found content questioning the security of the voting machines and candidate ads aired without proper classification as political advertising, and pointed out that nearly 70% of Meta ads about the electoral process attack institutions or cast doubt on the vote.  - “US company Meta has, without explanation, disabled Lula’s Instagram and Facebook profiles’ ability to run ads, 10 days from election” declared Brasilwire, calling it “another example of US interference and manipulation”.

Another important factor is the attempted interference by the United States. The Lula government asked the Federal Police and the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate several fronts of U.S. interference in the Brazilian election, focusing on actions that, from the presidential palace's perspective, aimed to benefit Flávio Bolsonaro’s candidacy. These actions included direct political pressure and boosting social media profiles; funding through RockBridge Network (see also our text about Peter Thiel's network), reportedly founded in 2019 by, among others, J.D. Vance, and allegedly used to fund Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign; and other actions, such as the closure of the U.S. Embassy in Brazil.

12 Democratic U.S. representatives, who wrote a letter accusing the Trump administration of trying to influence the elections in Brazil, endorsed the suspicion and sent it to Secretary Marco Rubio on Tuesday (6th). It is the third time in less than a month that members of Congress have questioned the Trump administration about the elections in Brazil. In the three-page document, the representatives say the State Department is promoting an “unnecessary escalation” that could rupture U.S.-Brazil relations.

Trump was pleased with the first-round results. In a slip, he praised the speed of the presidential election vote count “in India” on Monday (5th) and used the result to criticize the American electoral system again. Some time later, he edited the post.

All this chaotic scenario shows, once again, that politics is no longer based on concrete reality, data, numbers, or collective future projects, but rather on individual and individualistic emotions, rooted in resentment, disillusionment, faith in miracles (which could come from God or AI), and support for populist personalities and authoritarian figures.

If Flávio Bolsonaro wins these elections, Brazil will join the far-right wave sweeping the region and already overtaking Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Peru. Together, these countries represent about 58.3% of South America’s population.

Redaktion: Ute Löhning