Brazil’s Polarized Election

Brazil’s October 4 election will be a contest between two visions of the country’s role in the world. For the United States and Europe, the practical question is what each candidate would ask of foreign partners and whether he could build support at home to follow through. 

Incumbent Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wants Brazil to help shape global rules, an ambition at odds with US President Donald Trump's assertion of US primacy in the hemisphere. Washington is an unavoidable negotiating counterpart for Lula, not a political ally in his project. For his part, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, would use diplomacy to pursue more immediate gains in trade, investment, and security, giving closer political ties with Trump a central position. 

No matter who wins, Congress and the governors elected in October will shape the political agenda.

Neither candidate is poised to receive a blank check. A September Datafolha poll gave Lula 40% to Bolsonaro’s 36% in the first round, but put them within the margin of error in a possible runoff (47% to 45%). Two surveys released on September 28 reinforce the uncertainty: Nexus found a 46%–44% runoff, while Quaest found a tie at 42%. Quaest also measured rejection at 54% for Lula and 56% for Bolsonaro. A close victory over a widely rejected rival would offer a mandate to govern, but little evidence that voters had endorsed a sweeping geopolitical turn.

Nor do Brazilians divide neatly into rival foreign-policy camps. In a Pew survey conducted between February and April, 47% viewed the United States favorably and 46% said the same of China. The averages conceal an ideological divide: Of respondents on the right, 58% viewed the United States favorably, compared with 30% on the left. For China, the figures were 40% and 57%, respectively. Yet when Datafolha asked in July how Brazil should respond to US tariffs, 74% favored negotiating with Trump, including 71% of Lula’s supporters and 80% of Bolsonaro’s. Just 2% favored accepting every US demand. Those answers suggest an expectation across the board that Brazil will negotiate on its own terms. In this context, Bolsonaro would have to show what access to Trump delivers, and Lula would have to defend Brazil’s choices while keeping channels to Washington open.

The candidates would use that bargaining strategy for different purposes. Lula’s platform presents South American integration as a base for a wider role through BRICS, cooperation with the “Global South”, climate finance, and reform of international institutions. He wants Brazil to influence the rules affecting its development, rather than simply adjust to decisions taken elsewhere. His differences with Trump go beyond trade. In a September 21 interview, Lula criticized unilateralism, said he had asked Trump not to interfere in Brazil’s election, and pointed to talks on trade and an offer to cooperate against organized crime. He is prepared to bargain with Washington, but rejects a relationship in which it sets the terms for Brazil’s regional or global choices.

Bolsonaro would focus diplomacy more narrowly on specific economic and security gains. His program pledges to repair ties with the United States, Israel, and Argentina, pursue OECD accession, and bring Brazilian firms into global value chains. Yet, even as he questions Brazil’s place in BRICS, his program calls for negotiations with China.

Bolsonaro’s channel to Washington already exists. In May, he met with Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, while his brother Eduardo and ally Paulo Figueiredo joined him in talks with senior State Department officials. Vance asked about freedom of expression in Brazil, prompting Bolsonaro to criticize Brazil’s new rules for digital platforms. His defense of religious freedom and of life as beginning with conception has a diplomatic precedent. Jair Bolsonaro’s government co-sponsored the 2020 Geneva Consensus Declaration with the Trump administration, rejecting an international right to abortion, and instructed diplomats to define gender as biological sex. A Flávio Bolsonaro government could renew that coordination in international forums alongside bilateral talks on digital regulation.

The domestic coalition behind either foreign-policy project is still unsettled. Center and center-right parties hold the most seats in today’s lower house, but neither candidate has a ready-made majority. Voters will choose all 513 deputies, 54 of 81 senators, and new governors in October.

The next president will nominate successors to three justices due to retire in 2028, 2029, and 2030. Their appointments will require Senate approval. The outcome of Senate votes on justices and ambassadors could give either winner momentum or expose the limits of his coalition in a divided country. Congress as a whole would decide on treaties and changes to anti-terrorism laws, and vote on budgets for security and climate programs. The partisan balance among governors in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, border states, and the Amazon will shape cooperation on security and climate policy.

Security provides an immediate test of that balance. On September 22, Lula told the UN that Brazil needed cooperation against organized crime, not foreign intervention. The next day, Bolsonaro promised to join Trump’s Shield of the Americas. Both favor some cooperation with US authorities and reject an intervention on Brazilian soil. Lula has proposed exchanges of intelligence and cooperation on illicit finance and arms trafficking under Brazilian control. Bolsonaro would put a US-led coalition nearer the center of his approach and wants major criminal factions designated as terrorist groups. He could seek to join the Shield as a presidential choice, but a domestic terrorist designation with legal effect would require Congress to amend Brazil’s anti-terrorism law. Sustained operations would depend on incoming governors, whose police forces must work with federal agencies in places such as Rio de Janeiro and border states. A political opening in Brasília would be only the first step toward a functioning partnership.

The policy lesson for the United States and Europe is that they should pay attention to October’s congressional and state election results alongside those of the presidential election. Washington should seek agreements on trade and crime with either president, even though Lula and Trump differ over regional primacy and multilateral rules. Bolsonaro’s political ties to the administration could also bring free speech and social policy into a wider conversation. Europe, for its part, can build on the Mercosur agreement’s support across Brazil’s political divide. Washington should work for comparable support as it develops initiatives with either government. Brazil’s ties to both will outlast the election, but the contest will decide what its next president seeks from them. The coalition the winner can build at home will decide how much he can deliver.

The views expressed herein are those solely of the author(s). GMF as an institution does not take positions.