Brazil Runoff Puts Congress at Center of Power

Flávio Bolsonaro told TV Globo on Friday, Oct. 16, that he would give up a second term if Congress didn’t pass his proposal to end presidential reelection. The pledge comes as the Brazilian senator and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva head into the Oct. 25 runoff in a statistical tie.

“The details will come in the legislative process; I only need one term,” Bolsonaro said, according to CNN Brasil. He also said he wasn’t “disputing power,” Veja reported.

A Race Too Close to Call

The numbers offer little confidence to either side. A Datafolha poll released Thursday night gave Bolsonaro 51% of valid votes and Lula 49%, down from 52% to 48% a week earlier. The margin of error was two percentage points. A Quaest poll published Wednesday put Bolsonaro at 46% of voting intentions and Lula at 44%, also inside the margin.

Nine percent said they’d cast a blank or spoiled ballot. One percent were undecided. Voters’ mood is bleak: 54% said they would never vote for Bolsonaro, and 53% said the same about Lula. Asked what they feared more, Lula’s reelection or the Bolsonaro family’s return to power, respondents split evenly at 43%.

The geography hasn’t changed much. Lula led in the northeast and among Bolsa Família recipients. Bolsonaro led in the south and among evangelicals. In the first round, Bolsonaro took 47.03% to Lula’s 45.16%, and he has since secured the backing of almost all right-wing and centre-right parties.

Ending Reelection

Bolsonaro said he would put forward a constitutional amendment, known as a PEC, to end presidential reelection and bar relatives up to the third degree from succeeding him. That restriction is his proposal, not current law. It would also prevent his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, from running in 2030, A Crítica reported. Siblings, grandparents and uncles fall within that degree of relation.

Congress would decide the length of a single term, he said. Veja reported that discussions could include extending it from four years to five or six. The paper also noted that every president elected since 2002 — Lula, Dilma Rousseff and Jair Bolsonaro — has sought a second term. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso oversaw passage of the reelection amendment.

The hurdle is steep. A constitutional amendment needs three-fifths support in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, in two rounds of voting in each chamber. Congress hasn’t decided whether to approve it or how long a single term would last.

Shrinking the State

In a second TV Globo interview Friday, Bolsonaro pledged to cut at least 10 federal ministries from a government he said has 39. He said he wanted to balance public accounts without harming those most in need of government assistance. He promised to maintain the current government’s social programmes and create a Ministry of Prosperity.

Asked whether he’d keep minimum-wage increases above inflation, he answered, “Yes,” Poder360 reported. He said he wouldn’t unlink pensions from the minimum wage, and he didn’t intend to change the Constitution to remove minimum spending levels for health and education, O Tempo reported.

The interview didn’t identify which ministries would go or how much the cuts would save. It also didn’t explain how the wage and pension pledges would be financed. Congress would need to approve any ministry cuts.

The Working-Week Shift

Bolsonaro also reversed course on ending the 6×1 work schedule, under which many employees work six days and rest one. Congress promulgated the constitutional amendment on Friday. Bolsonaro initially opposed it, once calling it an “opportunistic” attempt by Lula to win reelection. Then he voted remotely in favour on Wednesday, Oct. 14, Poder360 reported. He told TV Globo he decided to “follow the will of the majority of Brazilian workers.”

The Senate also approved cutting the working week from 44 to 40 hours on Wednesday. The change was a Lula campaign flagship, and Bolsonaro voted for it too. Both polls came before that vote.

Lula, for his part, moved onto Bolsonaro’s ground on crime. He told TV Globo he supported lowering the age of criminal responsibility for the most serious crimes, a proposal Bolsonaro has long championed. Bolsonaro wants to cut the age from 18 to 16. “My opinion, as a Brazilian citizen, is that for any heinous crime I am in favour of lowering the age of majority,” Lula said. He added: “If I failed to make people understand the government I formed, I cannot blame anyone, the fault is mine.”

The Family Question

Bolsonaro said his brother Eduardo wouldn’t serve as foreign minister. “Não, ele não vai ser meu chanceler,” he told interviewer Renata Lo Prete, according to Estão. He called Eduardo a political persecutee abroad denouncing abuses in Brazil. 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 Eduardo was sentenced in Brazil to prison for coercion.

Asked whether Jair Bolsonaro would get a government post, Flávio said it was “not on the radar.” He denied he’d support changing the law to let his father succeed him in 2030. Terra reported he said Jair would climb the ramp of the Planalto presidential palace at the inauguration. The interview didn’t specify who would lead the foreign ministry or whether Jair would have a formal role.

What the Betting Says

Prediction markets lean more strongly than the polls. The Rio Times reported Polymarket prices of roughly 77% for Bolsonaro and 22% to 23.5% for Lula, with about US$185 million in total bets. Kalshi showed 77% to 78% for Bolsonaro and 21% to 22% for Lula. The articles described those figures as bets, not polls, and noted that prices change frequently.

The candidates were scheduled to meet Sunday in their first debate, on the Band network.

Why This Matters:

Brazil’s choice is between two sets of promises, and both carry a bill. Bolsonaro says he’ll cut at least 10 of 39 ministries and balance the books. Yet he’s also pledging above-inflation minimum-wage increases, protected pensions and untouched health and education floors, without explaining how any of it gets paid for. Lula’s 40-hour week and Bolsonaro’s support for it show how far both camps will go to win workers. For investors and employers, the open question is cost. Bolsonaro’s one-term pledge needs three-fifths of both chambers, testing whether Brazil’s institutions can restrain the incumbency habit shared by every recent president.