Brazil Runoff Puts Congress at Center of Power

Brazil’s Senate approved a reduction in the working week from 44 to 40 hours on Wednesday, a campaign flagship for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that Senator Flávio Bolsonaro also backed. The legislature enacted the change, and Flávio said he shifted his position after listening to workers. “I decided to follow the will of the majority of Brazilian workers,” he told TV Globo.

The candidates now head toward Brazil’s Oct. 25 runoff in a statistical tie, while their promises on wages, working hours and government spending still depend on Congress. Workers may get a shorter week, but proposals to reshape the federal government—and even end presidential reelection—rest with lawmakers and the constitutional process.

Workers’ hours, decided in Congress

Both candidates voted for the measure before the Senate approved the shorter work week. Congress promulgated a constitutional amendment ending the 6×1 work schedule on Friday, Oct. 16. Under that schedule, many employees work six days and rest one.

Flávio initially opposed the amendment. He voted remotely in favour on Wednesday, Oct. 14, after previously calling it an “opportunistic” attempt by Lula to win reelection. He later said he changed his position after listening to workers. The interviews didn’t describe workers organizing or delivering the change themselves; Congress made the formal decision.

The polls offer no clear mandate for either candidate. A Datafolha poll released Thursday night gave Bolsonaro 51% of valid votes and Lula 49%, with a margin of error of two percentage points. A week earlier, the figures stood at 52% and 48%. A Quaest poll published Wednesday put Bolsonaro at 46% of voting intentions and Lula at 44%, also within the margin of error.

Nine percent of respondents said they would cast a blank or spoiled ballot, and 1% were undecided. Rejection rates were close: 54% said they would never vote for Bolsonaro, while 53% said they would never vote for Lula. Asked whether they feared Lula’s reelection or the Bolsonaro family’s return to power more, respondents split evenly at 43%. Lula led in the northeast and among Bolsa Família recipients; Bolsonaro led in the south and among evangelicals.

Promises with a legislative gatekeeper

Flávio said in a TV Globo interview on Friday, Oct. 16, that he’d give up a second term if Congress didn’t pass his proposal to end presidential reelection. He said he would submit a constitutional amendment, known as a PEC, that would also bar relatives up to the third degree from succeeding him. “The details will come in the legislative process; I only need one term,” he said, according to CNN Brasil.

Congress would decide the length of a single term. Veja reported that discussions could include extending it from four years to five or six. A constitutional amendment requires three-fifths support in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, in two rounds of voting in each chamber. Lawmakers hadn’t settled whether they would approve Flávio’s proposal or how long a single term would last.

Flávio also pledged to cut at least 10 of the 39 federal ministries, saying he wanted to balance public accounts without harming people most in need of government assistance. He promised to keep minimum-wage increases above inflation and not unlink pensions from the minimum wage. He said he didn’t intend to change the Constitution to remove minimum spending levels for health and education. The interview didn’t identify which ministries he would cut, how much the reductions would save, or how he would finance the wage and pension pledges. Any ministry cuts would require congressional approval.

The ballot and the family question

Bolsonaro won 47.03% of the first-round vote against Lula’s 45.16%. He has secured the backing of almost all right-wing and centre-right parties and promised to maintain the current government’s social programmes and create a Ministry of Prosperity. The candidates were scheduled to meet Sunday in their first debate, on the Band network.

Flávio said his brother Eduardo wouldn’t be his foreign minister. “Não, ele não vai ser meu chanceler” (“No, he will not be my foreign minister”), he told interviewer Renata Lo Prete, according to Estão. Eduardo, a former federal deputy, lives in the United States and has lobbied for sanctions on Brazil over the Supreme Court conviction of Jair Bolsonaro for a coup attempt, Estão reported. Terra reported that Eduardo was sentenced in Brazil to prison for coercion.

Asked whether Jair Bolsonaro would receive a government post, Flávio said it was “not on the radar” and that his father had never discussed a post with him or suggested he wanted to work in government. Flávio also denied he would support changing the law to let his father succeed him in 2030. Who would lead Brazil’s foreign ministry, whether Eduardo might hold another post and whether Jair Bolsonaro would have a formal role remained unspecified.

Prediction-market prices offered a different kind of number, not a poll: Rio Times articles reported Polymarket prices of about 77% for Flávio and 23% for Lula, and Kalshi prices of 77% or 78% for Flávio and 21% or 22% for Lula. One report put total Polymarket bets at about US$185 million. The articles said prices update frequently and can change.