Incumbent socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s electoral campaign filed a request over the weekend seeking to ban conservative Senator Flávio Bolsonaro from running for public office in Brazil for eight years.
The request would effectively ban Flávio Bolsonaro from the October presidential election. A similar eight-year ban was imposed on Bolsonaro’s father, conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro, in 2023 before he was sentenced to 27 years in prison on “crimes against democracy” charges in 2025.
The ruling radical leftist Workers’ Party (PT) confirmed the request for the ban in an official statement on Sunday alongside a digital copy of the corresponding court filing.
The PT party detailed that lawyers representing the Brazil Ready for More coalition — one of the groups that form part of Lula’s broader electoral campaign — filed the ban request before the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE). The group is accusing Sen. Bolsonaro of having engaged in “economic power abuse” during the Festa do Peão de Barretos (“Cowboy Festival of Barretos”), a yearly rodeo show held in Barretos, São Paulo. The leftist party claimed that Bolsonaro “appropriated” the private event for political purposes.
The rodeo event, which reportedly features multiple private sponsors, took place from August 20 to 30. The PT party described the rodeo show as one of the largest festivals of its kind in Latin America, with a combined attendance of nearly 1 million throughout the multi-day event. Per UOL, Sen. Bolsonaro delivered brief remarks in recognition of Brazil’s agribusiness sector during the first days of the event and was applauded when he mentioned his father, Jair Bolsonaro. According to the outlet, Sen. Bolsonaro made no mention of President Lula during his speech.
Said speech, the complainants argued in the court filing, is grounds for the requested electoral ban of Sen. Bolsonaro. According to the PT party, the show’s presenter put on a “veritable show” to introduce Bolsonaro, using “expressions typical” of his campaign, lighting events, and calling for the audience to repeat Flávio’s name “in a style typical of campaign speeches.” According to the court document shared by the PT party, there were approximately 60,000 attendees present at the event at the time of Bolsonaro’s speech.
“During his speech, the subject of the investigation, Flávio Bolsonaro, addressed issues related to agribusiness, family, and God — recurring themes in his election campaign that were also discussed at length by [rodeo show presenter] Cuiabá,” the document read in part.
The text continued:
It is evident, therefore, that Flávio Bolsonaro, who is under investigation, did not go to Barretos merely as a spectator at the event, but rather to turn the festival stage — with the consent of its organizers and the event’s emcee — into a platform for promoting his gubernatorial campaign to the voters in attendance.
The Brazilian outlet Jovem Pan reported that, in addition to the ban, Lula’s campaign is demanding that Flavio Bolsonaro delete all social media content related to the rodeo show in Barretos under penalty of a daily fine in the event of non-compliance. Per the PT party, the complainants also requested that Brazil’s Electoral Prosecutor’s Office investigate the “criminal and electoral offences” allegedly committed by Bolsonaro and other individuals involved — with subsequent criminal charges.
“The companies and organizers of the event should also be summoned, as requested in the lawsuit,” the PT party stressed.
Neither Senator Bolsonaro nor any member of his presidential campaign has publicly commented on the ban request at press time. Jovem Pan noted that it reached out to Bolsonaro’s team, but received no response. The TSE, Brazil’s top electoral authority, has not issued a public comment on the request at press time.
On Monday morning, Sen. Bolsonaro published a new electoral ad flyer under the terms of Brazil’s electoral law. The flyer features an August 31 headline from a local outlet reporting that, as per the results of the most recent survey held by polling firm Nexus, he and President Lula are “technically tied” in a prospective runoff election.
Lula and Bolsonaro are among the 13 candidates currently running for president in Brazil’s October 4 general elections. Should no candidate obtain the required 50-percent majority of the votes on that day, a runoff election between the two most-voted candidates will take place on October 25. Brazil’s 2026 presidential campaign period officially began on August 16 and will run through the start of October.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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