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All 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies 257 seats needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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54 of the 81 seats in the Federal Senate 41 seats needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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General elections will be held in Brazil on 4 October 2026 to elect the president, vice president, members of the National Congress, the governors, vice governors, and legislative assemblies of all federative units, and the district council of Fernando de Noronha. If no candidate for president or governor receives a majority of the valid votes in the first round, a runoff election is held on 25 October.
Incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party is eligible for a fourth term. He stated in 2022 that he will not seek re-election,[1] but in 2024 stated that he could not rule out running for re-election to prevent "troglodytes" from coming to power in Brazil again.[2]
Having unsuccessfully run for president in 1989, 1994, and 1998, Lula was elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2006. He was then succeeded by his chief of staff, Dilma Rousseff, who was elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. Lula attempted to run for the presidency for a third non-consecutive term in 2018, but his candidacy was denied by the Superior Electoral Court due to his previous conviction on corruption charges in 2017. A series of court rulings led to his release from prison in 2019, followed by the annulment of his conviction and restoration of his political rights by 2021. For his vice presidential candidate in the 2022 election, Lula selected Geraldo Alckmin, who had been a presidential candidate of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party in 2006 (facing Lula in the second round) and 2018 but changed his affiliation to the Brazilian Socialist Party in 2022.
Lula won the 2022 election by the closest margin in Brazilian history, defeating incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro by 1.8% (or 2,139,645 votes). Lula became the first Brazilian president to secure a third term, and received the highest number of votes in a Brazilian election. At the same time, Bolsonaro, elected in 2018, became the first incumbent president to lose a bid for a second term since the 1997 constitutional amendment allowing consecutive re-election. In response to his loss, some Bolsonaro supporters demanded a military coup to prevent Lula's inauguration, but failed to gather sufficient support. Before Lula's inauguration, Bolsonaro left the country for the United States and was later barred from running for a second term before 2030.[3]
- ^ Malleret, Constance (25 October 2022). "Lula repeats that he will not seek re-election in event of victory". The Brazilian Report. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
- ^ "Lula não descarta participar de eleições de 2026 para 'evitar trogloditas de volta'". cbn (in Brazilian Portuguese). 18 June 2024. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
- ^ "Eight-year election ban for Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro". BBC News. 30 June 2023.