Brazil’s right has already changed the balance of power

In a televised presidential debate in Sao Paulo on October 18, Flavio Bolsonaro brought a number from Brazil’s prisons into an argument over crime. “Seventy-three percent”. The 45-year-old senator claimed that was the share of prisoners who had voted for his opponent, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 80. The figure came from polling stations inside detention facilities, where staff and eligible detainees awaiting trial could cast ballots. Convicted prisoners serving final sentences could not vote. Lula paused. “I want 100 percent,” he replied. “Even your father.”

Jair Bolsonaro, the absent father, had spent 28 years in Congress, where he repeatedly praised the 1964 military coup that ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship. He went on to become president, lost re-election to Lula in 2022 and was later convicted of plotting to overturn the result. He is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest. A week after Lula’s inauguration, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters invaded and vandalised the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court in Brasilia, claiming without evidence that the election had been stolen.

Back in the studio, Flavio was promising to “redemocratise” Brazil. He demanded respect for the 56 million Brazilians who had voted for him and said he would send Lula into retirement.

On October 4, Brazil held the first round of its presidential election, alongside elections for the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Flavio received 56.1 million votes, or 47.03 percent of valid ballots, against Lula’s 53.9 million and 45.16 percent. Since then, Bolsonaro’s lead in the polls has narrowed, with several surveys placing the candidates within the margin of error. The latest readings suggest Lula is gaining ground, although just days before the October 25 run-off, it remains uncertain whether the president can overcome Flavio’s first-round lead.

The October 18 debate had begun with a discussion of armed groups spreading through Brazilian neighbourhoods. Nearly 69 million Brazilians say they perceive the presence of criminal gangs or militias in their neighbourhoods, even as the country’s murder rate falls. Flavio called for treating those organisations as narcoterrorists and for Brazil to join United States President Donald Trump’s Shield of the Americas alongside Javier Milei’s Argentina. He promised 500,000 additional prison places, easier civilian access to firearms and a reduction in the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16, and to 14 for certain serious crimes.

For residents of poorer neighbourhoods, Flavio proposed a Ministry of Prosperity, promising vocational training and credit to help families receiving government assistance to start businesses of their own. The word “prosperity” had a history of its own in Brazil’s influential evangelical churches, where sermons sometimes link material advancement to faith and individual endeavour.

Taken together, the promises linked the prospect of safer streets to a particular idea of prosperity, in which government assistance would become a starting point for vocational training, credit and small businesses.

Lula spoke of the social gains of his governments and of restoring democratic institutions after the Bolsonaro years. A former union leader who helped found the centre-left Workers’ Party (PT), he proposed stronger federal coordination of public security. The tougher approach to crime was not confined to Flavio’s campaign. Lula, too, supported lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 16 for certain serious offences.

Two days before the debate, Lula had stood among congressional leaders to celebrate a reform that would gradually bring Brazil’s six-day working week to an end, reducing hours from 44 to 40 without cutting wages. After initially criticising the reform as opportunistic, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro changed his position and voted for it, saying he had listened to workers on the campaign trail.

Lula had other economic gains to highlight. Unemployment in Brazil has fallen from 7.8 percent in 2023 to 5.3 percent this year, while real wages have risen. For many households, however, expensive credit and debt repayments have dampened the impact of any improvements. Flavio has sought to capitalise on the resulting economic frustration, as well as concerns about public security.

If re-elected, Lula would have to address those frustrations while dealing with a Congress reshaped by the October 4 legislative elections. In the 513-seat lower house, Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party (PL) won 121 seats, up from 97. The PT-led bloc moved from 82 to 88, while the largest alliance of traditional centre-right parties lost 18 seats. The sharpest rearrangement had taken place within the right, leaving the parliamentary left’s numbers largely intact.

The right’s gains raise a question about the kind of change the Bolsonaro movement represents. In an October Datafolha survey, 48 percent of Lula’s supporters mentioned social protection, while 41 percent of Flavio’s supporters expressed a desire for change. Yet the PL’s new deputies were hardly political novices. Of the 121 elected, 111 had held office before and 93 had belonged to other parties.

In 2002, the same party had placed Jose Alencar, a conservative textile magnate, next to Lula on the presidential ticket that first brought the former union leader to power. Alencar remained vice president until 2010, though he left the PL in 2005 amid a corruption scandal involving its leadership. Jair Bolsonaro joined only in 2021. The party now housed his family’s ambitions alongside politicians whose careers had begun under very different banners.

In a country where presidents rarely command a parliamentary majority of their own party, politicians of such experience are seldom without work. Governments change, and parties move between coalitions to negotiate cabinet appointments and influence over the funds that reach their constituencies. Established centre-right parties have served administrations of widely differing orientations. Jair Bolsonaro eventually relied on them after campaigning against the political establishment. His movement’s gains had not made those alliances obsolete.

Lula has spent much of his political career constructing governments with former adversaries. His current vice president and running mate, Geraldo Alckmin, once challenged him for the presidency as the candidate of the centre-right opposition. A fourth term would demand more of that experience, with the right holding greater power in Congress. Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached in 2016 amid a deep recession and the collapse of her governing coalition, circumstances quite different from those Lula faces today.

The new balance of power would be particularly consequential for the Supreme Court. Alexandre de Moraes had overseen the case that sent Jair Bolsonaro to prison. As the Bolsonaro family accused him of political persecution, Lula’s party defended his authority as part of its defence of democracy. But the court has become a major target of the right’s parliamentary ambitions.

Moraes’s name had travelled through the October 4 Senate elections, in which 54 of the chamber’s 81 seats were contested. Candidates allied with the Bolsonaros promised to impeach him and curb the court’s powers. Some wanted its jurisdiction narrowed, while others sought to limit the authority of individual justices to act alone. The collapse of Banco Master, a private bank that had a lucrative contract with the law firm of Moraes’s wife, raised questions about possible conflicts of interest. The firm has denied wrongdoing.

A fourth Lula term would face 28 Liberal Party senators in an 81-seat chamber empowered to approve Supreme Court appointments and remove justices through impeachment. A survey by Folha de S. Paulo identified at least 49 members of the next Senate who had expressed support for impeaching Supreme Court justices in some circumstances. That was five short of the two-thirds required for removal, even before agreement on a particular case. Support for restricting the court’s powers extended beyond the Bolsonaro movement.

Congress’s growing power could also constrain Lula’s ability to deliver the economic and social improvements on which he has based much of his political appeal. Control over public money had been moving towards Congress. In 2025, parliamentary allocations for local projects reached about 47 billion reais ($9.3bn) in committed funds, more than four times their level 11 years earlier. Legislators increasingly choose where that money goes. A president can secure their votes for a particular measure without recovering control over the funds they distribute.

On Wednesday, Lula sent Congress a proposal to make public transport free on weekends and public holidays, allowing some workers who would soon have two days off to travel without paying fares. He suggested using money politicians had set aside for projects in their constituencies. The Speaker of the lower house welcomed the idea. He wanted the money to come from somewhere else.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.