Brazil runoff: Lula trails as Bolsonaro's son Flávio leads

Commentary by Christine Wollowski | October 15, 2026, 12:56 PM

Flávio Bolsonaro forms a heart with his hands. Photo: Marina Uezima/Brazil Photo Press/imago

Even though he goes to the gym every day, has himself filmed jogging and lifting weights, it cannot be denied: the man who wants to govern Brazil for another four years is over 80. At the end of his intended fourth term, he would be 85. The president at retirement age draws on his past. Lula is the first and only president from the working class, the only one who participated in the democracy movement after the last military dictatorship. No other politician can claim such a biography. So Lula runs again. After forty years in politics, there is still no successor in sight.

The incumbent head of state's preferred successor would be former mayor, education minister, and presidential candidate Fernando Haddad. But the 63-year-old Haddad already lost to Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 and again in 2026 to the right-wing governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas. Many consider him too intellectual. Haddad has great potential, the president judges, but needs "a little more." Since he did not use the four years of his current term to arrange his succession, Lula is again the only one who could have a chance to defeat the Bolsonaro clan in 2026, just as in 2022.

Bolsonaro's son Flávio enters the current runoff as the favorite. At the beginning of the year, even party colleagues saw the senator as a pale, possibly too pale personality. But the son benefited significantly more than expected from the charisma of his father, who is currently serving his 27-year prison sentence under house arrest. He achieved two percentage points more than the president.

The Workers' Party's Decline

The Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), the Workers' Party, performed worse in the first round almost everywhere than it did four years ago. However, it also fielded significantly fewer candidates than 4, 8, or even 30 years ago. The number of candidates aged 21 to 44 fell, while those over 60 rose. The PT has become a kind of retirement club. It fits that the party is poorly positioned in digital marketing and is only now, before the runoff, frantically trying to compensate for what it neglected over the past four years.

The Workers' Party's campaign is more backward-looking than future-oriented. The campaign is based on Lula's success story and past achievements. Even the measurable successes of the past term do not demonstrate future visions but are primarily measures to reverse disastrous developments under predecessor Jair Bolsonaro: Lula's government succeeded in reducing rainforest deforestation again, removing Brazil from the world hunger map, and better equipping environmental and educational institutions as well as the healthcare system. That is positive, but the associated costs burden the state treasury, and national debt is rising.

Moreover, the conservative congress has repeatedly blocked the government. Agrarian reform is stagnating, and the designation of indigenous territories drags on. That the queue for processing pension applications is now three times as long is noticed by most Brazilians in their own families. Even with increased income, the even more sharply risen cost of living is painfully noticeable. It does not go over well when Lula's wife Janja is active on the political stage without her own mandate, organizing her own appointments with her own travel costs. Millions in wasted state funds, complained not only the opposition. Meanwhile, the electoral court has dismissed a corresponding proceeding as unfounded. The fact is: at the end of the third term, about half of Brazilians rate the government as poor. Nearly as many believe corruption has increased in these years.

Judicial Scandal at the Supreme Court

The most recent judicial scandal at the Supreme Court has particularly agitated society. At least five of the ten judges face suspicions in connection with the Masterbank scandal. Several participated in judicial events and parties financed by banker Daniel Vorcaro or flew on his private jets. Alexandre de Morães, who had convicted Bolsonaro Senior for the 2023 coup attempt, is also under corruption suspicion. Until then, Morães had achieved almost heroic status among broad segments of the population as an iron defender of democracy. The power struggle at the Supreme Court, in which several judges revoked each other's decisions in the weeks before the election, continues before the runoff.

In this scenario, Flávio Bolsonaro manages to position himself as an alternative, even as an opponent of the corrupt system. Although he is entangled in all recent corruption scandals, from the pension scandal to the Masterbank scandal. But "corruption is generally attributed more to the current government," explains political scientist Ana Carolina Evangelista. Amid all the quarrels, scandals, and mutual accusations, Brazilians have become politically weary; one in five eligible voters did not go to the polls at all. The 45-year-old jurist Bolsonaro offers a simple solution: He promises change, a strong hand against crime, a leaner state. His closeness to paramilitary groups makes him, in the eyes of some voters, a guarantor of greater public security.

Entrepreneurs welcome his announced privatization program; his defense of Christian values such as the protection of unborn life in the form of an abortion ban appeals to conservatives. For the convinced fans of Bolsonaro Senior, however, the central campaign promise is what matters most: the junior wants to have his father pardoned immediately — by force if necessary.

Christine Wollowski is a member of the international correspondent network weltreporter.net and the Brazil correspondent for taz. In addition to daily politics, she writes primarily about social inequality, racism, and environmental issues.