Brazilian right-wing parties delivered their strongest electoral showing in more than four decades on Sunday, seizing a majority in the Senate and positioning the Liberal Party (PL) to become the largest force in both chambers of Congress when newly elected legislators take office in February 2027, according to Breitbart News.
The results capped a general election in which more than 125 million Brazilians — nearly 79 percent of the country’s 158.7 million registered voters — cast ballots for president, governors, the Chamber of Deputies, and two-thirds of the 81-seat Senate.
In the presidential race’s first round, conservative Senator Flavio Bolsonaro of the PL emerged as the top vote-getter. But he did not clear the 50-percent threshold needed to win outright, automatically triggering an October 25 runoff against his closest rival, incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the socialist Workers’ Party (PT).
A historic shift in the Senate
The legislative results may prove just as consequential as the presidential contest. Jovem Pan reported that the PL won a third of the Senate’s 81 seats, expanding from 15 to 28. When the new legislature convenes in February, PL and other right-wing parties will collectively hold 49 of the 81 seats, against 27 leftist senators and five identified as centrists.
That arithmetic carries direct procedural weight. Poder 360 explained that a 41-vote majority is required to approve ordinary legislation in the Senate, while constitutional amendments need 49 votes. Impeachment proceedings, including those targeting Supreme Court justices, require a two-thirds majority.
The PT, led by Lula, retained its nine seats and remains second among parties by Senate representation.
Largest lower-house bloc since 1988
In the Chamber of Deputies, the PL secured 121 of 513 seats, according to reports. A coalition of leftist parties including the PT, the Communist Party of Brazil, and the Brazilian Green Party collectively won 88 seats.
Officials with the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) had not yet formally published finalized lower-house results at press time, as the final allocation of seats depends on electoral quotients established under local law.
Even so, the outcome preserves the Bolsonaro-led PL’s status as the party with the most lawmakers in the chamber — and gives it the largest parliamentary group of any party since Brazil reformed its constitution in 1988. That breaks a record set by the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), which held 108 congressional seats after the 1990 elections.
Opposition’s top vote-getters
Globonews noted that the two candidates with the highest individual vote totals on Sunday were both conservative PL members: Nikolas Ferreira of Minas Gerais, with more than 3.1 million votes, and Lucas Pavanato of São Paulo, with a little over 3 million. Ferreira, a 30-year-old lawmaker, was censored by the TSE last week after publishing a video condemning Lula’s comment about girls being “touched.”
Gubernatorial races set the stage
Sunday’s gubernatorial contests produced first-round winners in 20 of Brazil’s 27 states, 13 of which went to right-wing parties. The PL captured the largest share of those first-round victories, with five governorships.
Among the five PL winners is Senator Sergio Moro, a former federal judge who oversaw the sprawling “Operation Car Wash” anti-corruption probe that led to Lula’s conviction. Moro, who is set to leave the Senate, was elected governor of Paraná.
Lula’s PT secured three first-round governor victories. The remaining seven governor races will be decided in runoffs held alongside the October 25 presidential vote.
The first-round presidential result — with Bolsonaro leading but short of an outright win — sets up a four-week sprint between the conservative senator and the incumbent president, with control of Congress already decided in the opposition’s favor.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/latin-america/2026/10/05/brazil-right-wing-secures-senate-in-best-electoral-performance-in-40-years/