Bolsonaro's Liberal Party Wins Record Senate Bloc as Right-Wing Wave Sweeps Brazil's Congress
The PL becomes the largest party in both chambers, boosting Flavio Bolsonaro ahead of the October 25 runoff and complicating any fourth Lula term
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File photo: The National Congress of Brazil in Brasilia, January 2006. Photo: Eurico Zimbres, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
Brazil's right-wing Liberal Party, the home of presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, emerged as the biggest winner of Sunday's congressional elections, securing the largest single-party representation in both the Senate and the lower house, Reuters reported.
The result hands the Bolsonaro camp fresh momentum three weeks before the October 25 presidential runoff, in which the senator faces leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Record gains in the Senate
According to Reuters, the Liberal Party (PL) increased its Senate representation from 15 to 28 seats, the strongest result for a party since Brazil's return to democracy in 1985. Projections showed it securing 121 seats in the lower house, up from 98.
Valor International reported that the PL elected 19 of the 54 Senate seats contested this year, giving it a bloc more than three times the size of Lula's Workers' Party (PT), which will hold nine seats.
Combined with other centre-to-right parties, which were projected to win close to 250 lower house seats and more than 30 Senate seats, the Bolsonaro agenda looks set to enjoy a healthy working majority in the next Congress, Reuters said.
Sunday's vote renewed all 513 seats in the lower house and two-thirds of the 81-seat Senate.
What it could mean for Jair Bolsonaro
An allied Congress would help the younger Bolsonaro pursue his aim of an amnesty for his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election, according to Reuters. The agency said the Senate's pro-Bolsonaro bloc may be close to the 54 votes needed to impeach the Supreme Court justices who convicted him.
"I was very happy to see how many Brazilians went to the polls to make their voices heard and didn't stay on the sidelines because they want change," Flavio Bolsonaro said after the vote.
PL national president Valdemar Costa Neto, however, told Valor he does not believe impeachment proceedings will advance. "If [President] Lula is reelected, those proceedings won't go anywhere," he said.
A harder road for Lula
The PT also grew in Congress, with a three-party bloc it leads projected to win 88 lower house seats, up from 82, Reuters said. Even so, analysts say the new Congress would make a fourth Lula term an uphill battle.
"Governance would pose a major challenge for President Lula," said Neuriberg Dias, head of legislative watchdog DIAP.
Several prominent government-aligned Senate candidates lost, Valor reported, including former ministers Simone Tebet and Marina Silva in Sao Paulo.
Costa Neto said the PL would still struggle to elect the Senate president unless Bolsonaro wins. "We need to elect Flávio [Bolsonaro]. Otherwise, we won't elect the Senate president," he told Valor.
