Brazil's Election Is Being Decided in Court Before It Reaches Voters
A Supreme Court justice suspended a presidential campaign and reversed himself a day later, while Lula's campaign seeks to bar a rival senator from standing.
Brazil votes in October for the presidency and both chambers of Congress. A significant share of the contest is being settled beforehand, in court.
This week's proceedings
- A Supreme Court justice reversed his own suspension of the presidential campaign of candidate Renan Santos, a day after ordering it.
- President Lula da Silva's campaign is seeking to bar conservative Senator Flávio Bolsonaro from standing for president.
- Lula addressed the Banco Master fraud case, which has implicated public officials, in a video posted on 3 September.
Why the judiciary occupies this role
Brazil's Supreme Federal Court holds broad authority over electoral matters and has exercised it extensively. The court's defenders argue this is a constitutional body doing its job in a system that has faced genuine attempts to subvert elections, and that the alternative is worse.
Critics — concentrated on the political right but not confined to it — argue that unelected justices are shaping the field of competition, and that a court which determines who may stand has moved beyond adjudication into selection.
The reversal in the Santos case, made within twenty-four hours, will be cited by both camps as confirmation of their view: as evidence of a court correcting itself, or of one acting without adequate deliberation.
The corruption dimension
Prosecutions carry particular weight in Brazilian politics generally, and for Lula specifically. His own convictions were later annulled, and he returned to the presidency after imprisonment. A fraud case touching officials during his government engages the biography his opponents campaign against — which is why he addressed it personally, on his own channels, rather than through the campaign.
What will actually determine governing capacity
Not the presidential margin. Brazil's fragmented party system means presidents assemble governing coalitions from a large number of parties, and congressional composition determines what any president can pass.
The court battles command the coverage. The congressional results will decide what the next government can do.
The regional pattern
Brazil's court wars sit alongside Mexico's cartel politics and Colombia's border violence as unresolved institutional conflicts across Latin America — long-running arrangements held in place provisionally, and now being tested by elections.