BLOOD IN THE WATER
Two catastrophic defeats for Lula in Congress put both the Executive and Judiciary branches in political danger.
President Lula da Silva’s government suffered twin defeats in the Brazilian Congress this week which carried enormous political significance. First, his nominee for the Supreme Court, Jorge Messias, became the first such nominee to be rejected by the Senate in 132 years, and his veto of the so-called “amnesty bill” for the 2023 Brasilia rioters was overridden. Taken together, these were not just defeats for Lula but a political rocket fired at the Supreme Court as well. The votes indicated that Lula can no longer assemble a governing majority in Congress to shield the Supreme Court from further actions. These might include impeachment proceedings against Justice Alexandre de Moraes and Justice Dias Toffoli, and the mere speculation of such action has given Congress powerful leverage over Lula in setting national policy as this year’s presidential election campaign approaches its kickoff.
What is underneath?
The three branches of Brazil’s government have been on a collision course for over a year, as I wrote last December. Lula came back into the presidency in 2022 with a historically narrow winning margin, facing a conservative Congress and no governing majority to count on. The Supreme Court, for its part, has been aggressively exerting its civil and criminal authority to curb speech on digital platforms and prosecute offenders, almost entirely from the right. It has been doing so under a claimed duty to defend the country’s institutions from emerging threats like fake news and false information designed, they say, to undermine public faith in democracy. Their most consequential act has been to prosecute, convict and jail former President Jair Bolsonaro earlier this year for participating in a coup plot in 2023.
A weakened president with sharp ideological edges and an aggressive, overreaching court were certain to provoke a reaction from Congress. It appears to have come, and the numbers in this week’s votes suggest the Congress has been stockpiling ammunition and has political momentum on its side.
During the Senate hearing on the Messias nomination, the opposition was led by Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, Lula’s leading opponent in this year’s election. He framed the vote as a referendum on “judicial restraint.” Many senators feel the Supreme Court has far overstepped its authority and polling suggests the public is beginning to agree. Flavio, for his part, is carrying a public grudge over the imprisonment of his father which is shared by the bolsonarista faction on the right.
The worsening Banco Master scandal has provided the opposition with the ammunition for the political fight they have launched this week. With Toffoli having to step down from the case due to alleged financial ties and the focus on Moraes’ wife’s legal contracts with the bank, both have been politically wounded and their claims to any moral high ground in their judicial actions have been rubbished.
Against the backdrop has been the steady rise of the center-right in Congress and out in the states. The 2024 municipal elections were a sweeping victory for them, expanding their political bases where electoral machines are built and stitched together to win national elections like those coming in October.
Lula’s base has, in turn, shrunk. The left has been losing ground everywhere in Brazil, and several social and economic factors indicate the tectonic plates of the electorate are shifting in ways that Lula can’t fully grasp.
Richard Lapper, the former Latin America editor for Financial Times and a good friend, was in Washington this week promoting his excellent new book, Lula!: The Man, The Myth and a Dream of Latin America (which I very strongly recommend you pick up). As he does in the book, he reminded the audience at a book event hosted by the Council of the Americas/Americas Society that the rise of self-employed work in Brazil - the so-called autônomos - has fundamentally shifted the culture, values and political sentiments of a big swath of the country’s working class.
While Lula’s Workers’ Party was born out of the trade union movement decades ago, self-employed workers now represent about 1/4 of the Brazilian workforce and it’s growing. They have more self-determination, better incomes and less appetite for government interventions. The the gig worker segment recently took to the streets to protest a federal bill to regulate app-based work like shared rides and deliveries that would impose mandatory social security taxes and minimum work hour requirements. They were not wooed by assurances that the bill would add social protections, and viewed it only as a scheme to register them in order to jack up their taxes and bureaucratic paperwork so they’d leave the business.
Lula and the left view the self-employed as either victims of capitalism, thrown into “precariousness” out of desperation, or greedy anti-social misfits colluding with the ruling class to destroy organized labor institutions. The vast majority of autônomos not only disagree but find both sets of beliefs laughably out of touch with the times. (They are, of course, correct about that.)
The self-employed are trending more and more to the center-right and the hard right, not out of anger so much as gravitation towards individual liberties, less taxation, more aggressive moves to contain crime and improve security at street level, and a growing sense of moral outrage against corruption. These sentiments flow much more to the right than they do towards the current incarnation of Brazil’s left. This provides some added political wind in the sails of a center-right Congress sharpening its weapons against overreaching judges and a weakened leftist president, particularly as they adopt messaging that is designed to appeal to the average autônomo.
Add in the self-inflicted wounds of scandal, rudderless policies and asynchronous vibes with where the country is heading, Congress has drawn blood from Lula and the Supreme Court this week. They’ve also trapped both branches of government somewhat exposed in the water, adding to the peril they could face should Congress decide to strike again.
Our take:
Say what you want about figures on the right, or the Bolsonaro family, or whatever class-war prism through which the Brazilian left still tries to see all events that happen. But there is no question in my mind that Lula and the Supreme Court have brought this week completely upon themselves, and what follows might continue to have a majority of the public’s acquiescence if the opposition moves carefully.
Right now, the opposition is short about 10 to 15 votes in favor of impeaching Moraes or Toffoli in the Senate, but the threat is far more real after this week’s votes. The Banco Master investigation is going at full speed and one embarrassing revelation after another seems to be tumbling onto the front pages. Even when right-wing political figures get caught up in the complex scandal, it seems the only ones that politically suffer are the Supreme Court justices and Lula.
That means power and leverage are in the hands of Congress. The leaders of the Senate and House need not call for anyone’s head in order to get what they want from Lula’s government now; the scare is enough. They may also choose to intimidate the more hyperpolitical judges into backing off, especially if it will relieve political machines that will return the favor by adding certain names to candidate lists or throw their weight behind a Senate or state governor candidate in October’s first round elections.
Lula might even politically awaken and see an advantage in cutting deals that could throw certain judges under the bus in exchange for policies or endorsements that help his position. He might not have enough good sense and political juice to go such lengths, but it’s the kind of thing that happens in Brazil at moments of peril.
I think the unemployment rates, crime and “kitchen table” inflation figures will do more in determining what happens in this three-branches war than anything else. At least, they will determine whether Lula can win a second round runoff against Flavio or another opponent. Should Lula lose, the Supreme Court will face a real reckoning if it hasn’t done so already by then.
The president’s approval ratings are under water now, if only by small numbers. The vast middle of the Brazilian electorate doesn’t pay attention to the palace intrigues of Brasilia so much as they do their bank accounts and the levels of crime in their neighborhoods.
Polls show a majority of voters believe the economy has worsened in the last 12 months. Despite low annual inflation figures, the price of basic goods and services remain high for most Brazilians, leading to a sense of economic exhaustion rather than the “picanha and beer” style of prosperity Lula promised in 2022.
Crime has surged to become the top concern for many voters in most polls, and they see Lula’s government as being too lenient in its approach to organized crime and drug trafficking. Lula’s contention that the gang members killed in the October 2025 operation against the Comando Vermelho cartel in Rio were “victims” was bewildering to most Brazilian voters. Indeed, the residents of the Alemão and Penha favelas - only a few years ago counted as part of Lula’s base - were glad to see the police cracking down. The Lula government’s rhetorical gobbledegook about targeting financiers and money laundering operations instead of the actual men who beat, rape and kill their neighbors has become alienating to those who wholeheartedly voted for Lula decades ago.
Indeed, given all the other factors adding momentum to the opposition’s battle plans, these economic and security indicators are probably the only membranes holding Lula and the Supreme Court in place. Should they tear, then I think the political peril becomes imminent.
The Chances of an Impeachment Trial
The probability depends on two key figures: Davi Alcolumbre (Senate President) and the shifting math of the 2026 election cycle.
The Alcolumbre Factor: As the man who controls the Senate floor, Alcolumbre is the gatekeeper. While he allowed the rejection of Messias to happen, he is a pragmatic politician. He is currently using the threat of impeachment as leverage to ensure his preferred candidates (like former Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco) are considered for future vacancies. He is unlikely to open a trial unless he feels it is the only way to maintain his own power.
The 2026 Election Pressure: We are now in a campaign year. Conservative candidates are campaigning on the promise of “cleansing the STF.” If polling continues to show that a majority of the public views the court as biased or corrupt (fueled by the Master scandal), more “centrão” senators may flip to support an impeachment trial to save their own seats in October.
The Legal High Bar: Impeaching a justice requires 54 votes (two-thirds) in the Senate. Currently, the opposition can reliably muster around 40–45 votes. They are close, but they still lack the “supermajority” needed to actually remove someone like Moraes or Toffoli from the bench.
The Immediate Outlook
Rather than a full removal, we are likely to see a “War of Attrition”:
Legislative Retaliation: Expect Congress to move faster on bills that limit monocratic (individual) decisions by justices and impose term limits on the STF.
The “Hostage” Nominee: Lula’s next nominee will likely be “held hostage” by the Senate until the government makes massive concessions on the budget or public security policy.
The Verdict: The “twin defeats” prove that Lula no longer has a functioning majority to protect the Supreme Court from Congress. While a full impeachment remains a “nuclear option” with roughly a 30–40% chance of being initiated before the October elections, the threat of it is now the primary tool the Senate is using to dictate national policy.