Brazil’s electoral court issued opposing orders over Lula campaign communications on Sunday, Oct. 11. One provisionally restored a WhatsApp channel with more than 3.4 million members; another suspended a campaign advertisement that ran in free, publicly funded airtime.
Who Controls Campaign Reach
Federal deputy André Janones, who represents Minas Gerais for Rede Sustentabilidade, created “Exército do Lula” to support President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Earlier Sunday, Superior Electoral Court (TSE) president Kassio Nunes Marques ordered WhatsApp, owned by Meta Platforms, to suspend the channel. WhatsApp had three hours to disable it. Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva, the electoral court’s inspector-general and rapporteur, later provisionally restored the channel until the full bench rules. By Sunday evening, no one knew whether WhatsApp had reactivated it, and the TSE had published no note on Cueva’s decision.
Cueva said suspending an entire channel “exige demonstração da extensão e da reiteração das condutas” — proof of how widespread and repeated the conduct is. He said the court must first show that milder measures targeting individual posts fall short, and that officials hadn’t finished gathering evidence when they ordered the suspension. He left open the possibility of reconsidering the restoration if new facts justified a stricter measure.
Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign sought the channel’s suspension, alleging that it spread disinformation about cuts to Bolsa Família cash transfers and pensions. Nunes Marques said the channel repeated content the court had already judged untrue, including a claim that Flávio favoured dropping Our Lady of Aparecida as Brazil’s patron saint. Flávio, a senator for the conservative Liberal Party (PL), is Lula’s opponent in the runoff; Lula leads the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT).
On Oct. 10, the TSE said Cueva had admitted Flávio’s abuse case against Lula, running mate Geraldo Alckmin and Janones. The filing seeks to strip Lula and Alckmin of their registration and suspend the channel. The court stressed that admitting the case doesn’t mean its allegations are true. Janones said, “A censura já começou” (“censorship has already begun”). Lula told journalists in São Paulo he wouldn’t accept “intromissão indevida da Justiça Eleitoral” (“undue interference by the electoral court”).
Publicly Funded Airtime
In a separate provisional injunction issued Saturday, Oct. 10, Nunes Marques suspended a Lula campaign ad that had run in free, publicly funded campaign airtime. The ad targeted Flávio and his running mate, Alfredo Gaspar, both members of the PL. It contrasted Lula’s ticket, described as the “duo of experience,” with a “duo of scandals.” It showed a headline about funding for Dark Horse, a film about Jair Bolsonaro, and included audio mentioning money laundering. Nunes Marques ruled that the combination could lead voters to believe an accusation had been proven.
The ad also cited an allegation involving the sexual abuse of a minor against Gaspar, but didn’t say that Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes shelved a request to investigate him on Oct. 6. Nunes Marques wrote that showing an old headline “as if it were current” without mentioning the shelving could suggest an open inquiry. He cited an electoral-law ban on slander and defamation in campaign material. The injunction is provisional and could be reviewed by the full court; it didn’t end any police inquiry into Dark Horse’s funding.
The court also acted against the conservative side on Saturday. Justice Marco Aurélio Bellizze ordered Gaspar to delete an Instagram video accusing Lula of seeking 1 billion reais, about US$200 million at 5.01 reais per US$, in bribes. Lula denied the allegation, and Bellizze found too little evidence. On Sept. 22, Nunes Marques had suspended a Lula radio jingle linking Flávio to several scandals.
The Poll and the Limits of the Count
An Ipespe poll released Saturday gave Flávio 52.7% of valid votes to Lula’s 47.3%. Ipespe and Abrapel, the Brazilian Association of Electoral Researchers, surveyed 1,500 voters by telephone from Oct. 6 to Oct. 8. The margin of error was 2.6 percentage points either way, at 95.45% confidence. The poll was registered with the TSE under protocol BR-00933/2026.
Asked to choose between the candidates, 49% picked Flávio and 44% Lula. Five percent said they would cast a blank or spoiled ballot, and 3% were undecided. Among respondents who said they would certainly vote, Flávio had 53.1% of valid votes and Lula 46.9%. Brazil’s electoral court declares the winner based on valid votes, which exclude blank ballots, spoiled ballots and undecided voters.
Ipespe found Lula ahead 63% to 29% in the Northeast, while Flávio led 63% to 30% in the South and 52% to 40% in the Southeast. The poll also found 43% approval and 50% disapproval of Lula’s government, while 53% called the economy bad or very bad. Ipespe said polls can’t fully capture abstention, which can decide a close race. Its fieldwork ended before Paraná governor Ratinho Junior endorsed Flávio on Saturday and before the order suspending Lula’s ad.
The full TSE bench had yet to decide whether the WhatsApp channel could remain open through the runoff, scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 25. As of Sunday afternoon, the court hadn’t published the ad decision or a press note. Ipespe described its survey as a weekly tracker, not an election result.