Brazil’s presidential election has entered a volatile new phase, with a widening confrontation inside the Supreme Federal Court colliding with an increasingly tight contest between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro.
Less than a month before Brazilians vote in the first round of the general elections, two new polls point to a technical tie between Lula, 80, and Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, after the president lost the narrow advantage he had previously held. At the same time, a third candidate has begun to break into what had largely been a two-way contest, while Brazil’s highest court is facing one of the most serious crises in its history over allegations surrounding the powerful and controversial judge Alexandre de Moraes.
The convergence of the two crises has given the campaign a new dimension. The election is no longer simply a contest between Lula’s left-wing Workers’ Party and the political movement associated with the Bolsonaro family. The Supreme Court itself has become a central political battleground.
On Independence Day, Lula will preside over the official civic-military parade in Brasília, while Flávio Bolsonaro is due to lead a march in São Paulo against the president and Judge Moraes. The latest revelations could strengthen Bolsonaro’s desire to pursue impeachment proceedings against the judge.
The electoral numbers remain favourable to Lula in the first round, but the margin is narrowing. Datafolha gives Lula 38% and Flávio Bolsonaro 33%, while Quaest places Lula at 37% and Bolsonaro at 29%. In both surveys, Augusto Cury, a psychiatrist and best-selling self-help author with no political experience, has emerged as the strongest third candidate, receiving 8% in Datafolha and 10% in Quaest.
The decisive test, however, may come in the second round. Datafolha gives Lula 46% against 42% for Flávio Bolsonaro, while Quaest records 42% for Lula and 41% for Bolsonaro. The differences are small enough to demonstrate how competitive the race has become.
Brazil will vote on 4 October for president, governors, Congress and two-thirds of the Senate. If no candidate secures more than 50% of the valid votes, voters will return to the polls on 25 October.
The hostility towards the two leading candidates is also striking. According to Quaest, 55% of voters reject Flávio Bolsonaro and 53% reject Lula. The figures reinforce the importance of the electorate that is dissatisfied with both political camps and help explain the space opening for Cury.
Cury’s appeal is directed at voters who want neither Lula nor Bolsonaro. His message is centred on pacifying Brazil and ending polarisation, promising to combine elements of both right-wing and left-wing policy. His rapid rise, despite his lack of political experience, has added another uncertainty to an already unsettled race.
But alongside the electoral contest, the crisis at the Supreme Court has become increasingly difficult to separate from the political struggle.
Moraes, once elevated as a defender of Brazilian democracy against Bolsonarista attempts to undermine it, is now at the centre of corruption suspicions involving Daniel Vorcaro, the banker accused of being responsible for Brazil’s biggest fraud. The controversy concerns Banco Master, which was liquidated by the Central Bank in 2025 after leaving a multimillion-dollar hole.
The investigation has expanded into a much wider scandal involving powerful figures across Brasília. Its repercussions have reached the judiciary, politics, the Central Bank and the Federal Police. Flávio Bolsonaro has also had contact with Vorcaro, who promised him 25 million dollars to finance a film about Jair Bolsonaro, who is imprisoned. According to police, half of the money was delivered.
Investigators say Vorcaro had close contact with Moraes and appealed to him to intervene to halt investigations. The banker also asked the judge whether he should flee the country shortly before his arrest. Messages between the two have now become public, although it remains unknown how Moraes responded.
The revelations have been compounded by the fact that Banco Master had hired the law firm of Moraes’s wife for 25 million dollars, a price described in the source material as far outside the market.
Moraes has not been accused of anything. He is not formally under investigation, since such an investigation would have to be authorised by the Supreme Court itself.
That fact has intensified the institutional dilemma. Editorial writers at Brazil’s leading newspapers have demanded that Moraes provide explanations and resign, or at least temporarily step aside while the investigation continues, arguing that the credibility of the country’s highest court is at stake.
Moraes has remained silent. Lula, meanwhile, has sought to distance himself from the judge, despite having maintained a close relationship with him in recent years. The president has insisted that the law must apply equally to everyone.
“Nadie, en nombre de la democracia, puede usar el cargo que ostenta en beneficio personal”, Lula said on Friday. He added: “Es fundamental que se investigue a todo el mundo, sin blindar a nadie, duela a quien le duela. El pueblo brasileño tiene derecho a saber la verdad”.
The disclosure of the messages has also exposed a deeper conflict inside the court. André Mendonça, one of Moraes’s colleagues, ordered the lifting of secrecy surrounding a police report examining the relationship between the judge and the banker. The decision was significant because the Supreme Court normally handles its internal disputes privately.
Moraes responded by opening an investigation into Mendonça over an alleged lack of impartiality. The confrontation has revealed a months-long struggle between the two judges, adding an institutional conflict to the political and corruption controversy.
The stakes extend well beyond the immediate dispute. The next president of Brazil will be able to appoint at least three of the Supreme Court’s 11 judges. The election could therefore preserve the current majority, regarded as favourable to Lula, or create a court more closely aligned with the Bolsonaro camp.
Mendonça himself was appointed by Jair Bolsonaro.
The result is a presidential campaign in which the presidency, the Supreme Court and the credibility of Brazil’s institutions are increasingly intertwined. Lula retains the lead in the first round, but his advantage is narrow enough to make the second round highly competitive. Flávio Bolsonaro remains within striking distance, while Cury’s emergence threatens to disrupt the established two-camp contest.
At the same time, allegations surrounding one of the country’s most powerful judges have opened an unprecedented institutional confrontation inside the Supreme Court itself.
With voting day approaching, Brazil faces an election in which the question of who governs the country is becoming inseparable from another question: who will shape the institution that stands at the centre of its political system.
