Right-wing and center-right parties won 341 of Brazil’s 513 lower-house seats, giving the next president a conservative majority to negotiate with, whoever wins the runoff on October 25. The Liberal Party of Bolsonaro elected 121 lawmakers, the largest caucus, and is projected to hold 28 Senate seats in the next legislature. That arithmetic gives conservative parties leverage beyond the presidency.
Congressional Leverage
The lawmakers may not vote as a disciplined bloc. Still, the next president will have to bargain with a conservative majority. Brazil has long had a conservative Congress, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva knows how to negotiate with it. But the political environment has changed: congressional brokers now operate alongside a right with mass loyalties and claims to executive competence, while the electoral cost of helping a left-wing government advance has grown.
Senator Flávio Bolsonaro could bring the presidency into closer alignment with conservative strength elsewhere in government. If Lula wins reelection, he could resist or dilute parts of the right’s agenda. The presidency alone doesn’t capture the balance of power. Conservative influence is spread among politicians and institutions with their own resources, and the Bolsonaro family doesn’t need to command every participant for the broader coalition to shape political calculations.
Privatization and Public Spending
The analysis traces conservative strength to three overlapping forces. “Bolsonarismo” sustains an identity beyond individual elections and mobilizes opposition to the left. During grassroots digital activism in the 2022 election, religious framing helped reinforce loyalty and cast institutional oversight as censorship.
The “managerial right” broadens the movement’s appeal. Technocratic São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas won reelection with 62.65% of valid votes on October 4. His government’s privatization of water company Sabesp offers an approach centered on investment and administrative performance. That appeals to conservative voters tired of confrontation, though a less combative presentation doesn’t necessarily mean a more moderate agenda.
The “transactional right” connects those constituencies to government. Much of the Centrão, a loose congressional grouping known for negotiating with presidents of different parties, operates through local networks and influence over public spending. Its cooperation with Lula doesn’t signal ideological conversion; participation in government can coexist with the ability to limit government action. The three groups compete, and cooperation isn’t automatic: Bolsonarismo supplies mobilization, managerial conservatives appeal beyond its core, and congressional brokers turn political strength into agreements.
A Coalition With Competing Interests
Examples elsewhere in Latin America show how hard it can be to turn an electoral mandate into governing power. Argentina’s Javier Milei built support around economic rupture, then urged moderate opposition lawmakers to back his reforms after winning last year’s midterms. Chile’s José Antonio Kast campaigned on crime and immigration but inherited a divided Congress, including an evenly split Senate and a lower house where an anti-establishment party could hold the balance.
El Salvador took a different path. Nayib Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party won 54 of 60 legislative seats in 2024, and lawmakers abolished presidential term limits the following year. In Brazil, conservative influence is spread among politicians and institutions with their own resources. Coordination is harder, but the right can remain influential even if it loses the presidency.
Economic interests also complicate a common program. Brazil’s conservative coalition includes exporters whose interests call for a different calculation from Donald Trump’s 2024 Republican platform, which called for baseline import tariffs and reduced dependence on China. China bought 30.7% of Brazil’s exports between January and August of this year; confrontation with Beijing would hurt constituencies a conservative president needs.
The election will determine how conservative strength interacts with executive power. Flávio would have more room to advance a shared agenda, while facing demands from competing right-wing groups. Lula could block or dilute parts of that agenda, but reelection wouldn’t restore the left’s influence across Congress and the states. Whoever wins on October 25 will govern in an environment where the right can shape government inside or outside a coalition, starting in January. Fernanda Magnotta, a senior fellow at the Brazilian Center for International Relations and a professor of the International Relations Program at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in São Paulo, wrote the analysis. It was published October 6, 2026, and says its opinions don’t necessarily reflect those of Americas Quarterly or its publishers.