2022 Brazilian general election: Difference between revisions

2022 Brazilian general election

← 2018 2026 →

Presidential election

2 October 2022 (2022-10-02) (first round) 30 October 2022 (2022-10-30) (second round, if necessary)

Opinion polls

Candidate Jair Bolsonaro Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Party PL PT Alliance For the Good of Brazil[c] Brazil of Hope[a] Home state Rio de Janeiro[d] São Paulo[b] Running mate Braga Netto Geraldo Alckmin   Simone-tebet-076.jpg Candidate Ciro Gomes Simone Tebet Party PDT MDB Alliance Brazil for Everyone[f] Home state Ceará[e] Mato Grosso do Sul[g] Running mate Ana Paula Matos Mara Gabrilli

Incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro PL

Parliamentary election

All 513 seats of Chamber of Deputies 27 of 81 seats of the Federal Senate

Party Leader Current seats Chamber of Deputies[1] PL Altineu Côrtes 76 PP André Fufuca 58 PT Reginaldo Lopes 56 UNIÃO Elmar Nascimento 51 PSD Antonio Brito 46 REPUBLICANOS Vinicius Carvalho 44 MDB Isnaldo Bulhões Jr. 37 PSB Bira do Pindaré 24 PSDB Adolfo Viana 22 PDT André Figueiredo 19 Others 80 Federal Senate[2] MDB Eduardo Braga 13 PSD Nelsinho Trad 11 PODE Alvaro Dias 8 PP Mailza Gomes 8 UNIÃO Davi Alcolumbre 8 PL Flávio Bolsonaro 7 PT Paulo Rocha 7 PSDB Izalci Lucas 6 Others 13

General elections are scheduled to be held on 2 October 2022 in Brazil to elect the President, Vice President, and the National Congress. Elections for state Governors and Vice Governors, State Legislative Assemblies, the Federal District Legislative Chamber, and the District Council of Fernando de Noronha will be held at the same time.^[3] There are more than 156 million registered voters in Brazil for this election,^[4] making the country the second largest democracy in the Americas and one of the largest in the world.^[5]

Incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro, elected in 2018, is a candidate for reelection. Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, elected in 2002 and reelected in 2006, is a candidate for trielection. Bolsonaro made several allegations of election fraud, including prior to the election. Many observers denounced these allegations as false and expressed concerns that they could be used to challenge the outcome of the election or to execute a self-coup.^{[6][7][8][9][10]} Some commentators have also noted the importance of this election for the Amazon rainforest,^[11] as well as climate change.^[12]

The President and Vice President of Brazil are elected as a joint ticket using the two-round system. The first round of elections is held on the first Sunday of October (in this instance, 2 October 2022).^[13] A candidate who receives more than 50% of the total valid votes in the first round is elected. If the 50% threshold is not met by any candidate, the two candidates who receive the most votes in the first round participate in a second round of voting, held on the last Sunday of October (in this instance, 30 October 2022), and the candidate who receives the most votes in the second round is elected.

The Governors and Vice Governors of all states and of the Federal District will also be elected in 2022, in two rounds if needed, in the same way as the presidential election.

One-third of the 81 members of the Federal Senate will be elected in 2022, the other two-thirds having been elected in 2018. One candidate will be elected from each of the states and the Federal District using plurality voting.^[14]

All 513 members of the Chamber of Deputies (Federal Deputies) will be elected in 2022, with candidates elected from 27 multi-member constituencies corresponding to the states and the Federal District, varying in size from 8 to 70 seats. All members of the State Legislative Assemblies (State Deputies) and of the Federal District Legislative Chamber (District Deputies), varying in size from 24 to 94 seats, will also be elected. These elections are held using open list proportional representation, with seats allocated using integer quotients and the D'Hondt method.^[15][16]

All seven members of the District Council of Fernando de Noronha will be elected in 2022, by single non-transferable vote. Unlike elections for other offices in Brazil, candidates for this council are not nominated by political parties.^[17]

Voting in Brazil is allowed for citizens over 16 years old and mandatory for literate citizens between 18 and 70 years old (except conscripts, who are not allowed to vote during mandatory military service).^[18] Those who are required but do not vote in an election and do not present an acceptable justification (such as being absent from their voting locality at the time)^[19] must pay a fine, normally R$3.51^[20][21] (equivalent to US$0.67 as of September 2022), but in some cases the fine may be waived, reduced or increased up to R$35.13 (US$6.67).^[22]

Brazilian citizens residing abroad may only vote for president and vice president.^[23] Due to a treaty with Portugal, Portuguese citizens legally residing in Brazil for more than three years may also register to vote in Brazilian elections.^[24]

All candidates for federal, state, Federal District and municipal offices must be nominated by a political party. For offices to be elected by majority or plurality (excutive offices and senators), parties may form a coalition (coligação) to nominate a single candidate. The coalitions do not need to be composed of the same parties for every nomination, do not need to be maintained after the election, and are not valid for offices to be elected proportionally (deputies and aldermen).^[25] A new law, valid for this election, also allows parties to form a different type of alliance called federation (federação), which acts a single party to nominate candidates for all offices in all locations, including those to be elected proportionally, and must be maintained with a single leadership structure over the course of the elected legislature.^[26] For 2022, three federations were formed: Brazil of Hope (PT-PCdoB-PV), Always Forward (PSDB-Cidadania), and PSOL REDE (PSOL-REDE).^[27] Federations may also act as parties to form coalitions.

For offices to be elected proportionally, each party must nominate candidates of each sex in a distribution between 30 and 70%.^[25] Under rulings by the Superior Electoral Court and Supreme Federal Court, parties must also allocate their funds and broadcast time proportionally to the number of their candidates of each sex and race.^[28]

Voting in Brazilian elections can only be done in person and only on election day, which is always a Sunday. There is no provision for postal or early voting. Voters must be previously registered and must provide photo identification. Each voter can only vote in one designated voting station, either based on the voter's registered domicile or at a different location that the voter must specifically request if planning to be there temporarily on election day.^[3]

More than 92,000 voting stations were installed in all municipalities of Brazil, the Federal District and Fernando de Noronha.^[29] Most voting stations are in public schools.^[30] In some sparsely populated areas, such as indigenous territories, the installation and use of voting stations requires extensive travel and logistics.^[31] Voting stations were also installed in 160 locations in other countries, mostly in Brazilian diplomatic missions, for Brazilian citizens residing abroad.^[32]

Voting is done almost entirely on direct-recording electronic voting machines, designed for extreme simplicity. The voter dials a number corresponding to the desired candidate or party, causing the name and photo of the candidate or party to appear on the screen, then the voter presses a green button to confirm or a red button to correct and try again. It is also possible to leave the vote blank by pressing a white button, or to nullify the vote by dialing a number that does not correspond to any candidate or party. Paper ballots are only used in case a voting machine malfunctions or in locations abroad with less than 100 Brazilian voters.^[3]

The electronic system is subject to extensive tests, including on machines randomly selected from actual voting stations on election day, witnessed by political parties to rule out fraud. After voting ends, every machine prints a record of its total votes for each candidate or party, which is publicly displayed for comparison with the results published electronically.^[33] The system delivers the complete election results usually a few hours after voting ends, which is extremely fast for such a large population as Brazil. However, the system does not create a physical record of individual votes to allow a full recount.^[34]

The partial vote count for an office can only start being published after voting has ended in all locations in Brazil voting for that office, to avoid influencing those still voting. In previous years, due to time zones, the vote count for president (the only one that combines votes from more than one state) could only start being published after voting ended in UTC−05:00, two hours after it had ended for the vast majority of the population in UTC−03:00. To avoid this undesirable wait, for 2022 the Superior Electoral Court ordered voting stations to operate at the same time in the whole country, regardless of their time zone: 9:00 to 18:00 UTC−02:00, 8:00 to 17:00 UTC−03:00, 7:00 to 16:00 UTC−04:00, and 6:00 to 15:00 UTC−05:00.^[35] Politicians in Acre, in UTC−05:00, filed a legal complaint against this order due to the unreasonably early start of voting preparations in their local time, but the complaint was dismissed by the Supreme Federal Court.^[36] The unified voting time does not apply to voting stations for Brazilian citizens abroad, which still operate from 8:00 to 17:00 local time, even though some of them end up to four hours after UTC−03:00.^[37][38]

Party		Presidential candidate[39]		Vice presidential candidate[h]		Coalition
	Liberal Party (PL 22)		Jair Bolsonaro President of Brazil (since 2019) Federal Deputy for Rio de Janeiro (1991–2018)		Walter Braga Netto Minister of Defence (2021–2022) Chief of Staff of the Presidency (2020–2021)	For the Good of Brazil Liberal Party (PL) Republicans Progressives (PP)
	Workers' Party (PT 13)		Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva President of Brazil (2003–2010) Federal Deputy for São Paulo (1987–1991)		Geraldo Alckmin (PSB) Governor of São Paulo (2001–2006, 2011–2018) Vice Governor of São Paulo (1995–2001)	Brazil of Hope Brazil of Hope (FE BRASIL) Workers' Party (PT) Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) Green Party (PV) PSOL REDE Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL) Sustainability Network (REDE) Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) Solidarity Forward (AVANTE) Act (AGIR) Republican Party of the Social Order (PROS)
	New Party (NOVO 30)		Luiz Felipe d'Avila		Tiago Mitraud Federal Deputy for Minas Gerais (since 2019)	—
	Christian Democracy (DC 27)		José Maria Eymael Federal Deputy for São Paulo (1986–1995)		João Barbosa Bravo Mayor of São Gonçalo (1993–1997)	—
	Democratic Labour Party (PDT 12)		Ciro Gomes Federal Deputy for Ceará (2007–2011) Minister of National Integration (2003–2006) Minister of Finance (1994) Governor of Ceará (1991–1994)		Ana Paula Matos Vice Mayor of Salvador (since 2021)	—
	Brazilian Communist Party (PCB 21)		Sofia Manzano		Antonio Alves da Silva	—
	Popular Unity (UP 80)		Leonardo Péricles		Samara Martins	—
	United Socialist Workers' Party (PSTU 16)		Vera Lúcia Salgado		Kunã Yporã Tremembé	—
	Brazilian Labour Party (PTB 14)	Kelmon Souza	Kelmon Souza[i]		Luiz Cláudio Gamonal[i]	—
	Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB 15)	Simone-tebet-076.jpg	Simone Tebet Senator for Mato Grosso do Sul (since 2015) Vice Governor of Mato Grosso do Sul (2011–2014)		Mara Gabrilli (PSDB) Senator for São Paulo (since 2019)	Brazil for Everyone Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) Always Forward Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) Citizenship (CIDADANIA) We Can (PODE)
	Brazil Union (UNIÃO 44)		Soraya Thronicke Senator for Mato Grosso do Sul (since 2019)		Marcos Cintra Secretary of the RFB (2019) Federal Deputy for São Paulo (1999–2003)	—

Workers' Party Communist Party of Brazil Green Party Brazil of Hope Socialism and Liberty Party Sustainability Network PSOL REDE Brazilian Socialist Party Solidarity Forward Act Republican Party of the Social Order Workers' Cause Party	Lula (PT) Alckmin (PSB)

Liberal Party Republicans Progressives Brazilian Labour Renewal Party Social Christian Party	Bolsonaro (PL) Braga Netto (PL)

Brazilian Democratic Movement Brazilian Social Democracy Party Citizenship Always Forward We Can	Tebet (MDB) Gabrilli (PSDB)

For the first time in the Brazilian presidential elections since 1989, television and radio stations, newspapers and news websites group themselves into pools to hold presidential debates, by request from the campaigns in order to reduce the number of debates scheduled for the 2022 elections.^[98]

The following presidential debates were held or scheduled (times in UTC−03:00):

The results of the previous general elections and the composition of the National Congress before the 2022 election are given below. In 2022, all members of the Chamber of Deputies and one third of the Senate (one senator from each state and Federal District) will be elected.

Composition of Brazil's National Congress

Party[105]		Chamber of Deputies			Senate
		Elected 2018[106]	Incumbent 2022[1]	+/–	Elected 2014,[107] 2018,[108] 2020[109]	Incumbent 2022[2]	+/–	Contested 2022[110]
	PL	33	76	43	2	7	5	2
	PP	38	58	20	6	8	2	4
	PT	56[m]	56		6	7	1	2
	UNIÃO	81[n]	51	30	10[o][p]	8	2	1
	PSD	35	46	11	7[p]	11	4	3
	REPUBLICANOS	29[m]	44	15	1	1		–
	MDB	34	37	3	12	13	1	4
	PSB	32	24	8	5	1	4	1
	PSDB	29	22	7	8	6	2	2
	PDT	28	19	9	6	3	3	1
	PODE	17[q]	9	8	3[r]	8	5	2
	SOLIDARIEDADE	13	8	5	1	–	1	–
	PSOL	10	8	2	–	–		–
	PCdoB	10[s]	8	2	–	–		–
	NOVO	8	8		–	–		–
	PSC	7[m]	8	1	1	1		1
	CIDADANIA	8	7	1	2	1	1	–
	AVANTE	7	6	1	–	–		–
	PATRIOTA	9[t]	5	4	1[u]	–	1	–
	PROS	8	4	4	1	2	1	1
	PV	4	4		–	–		–
	PTB	10	3	7	4	2	2	2
	REDE	1	2	1	5	1	4	–
	PMN	3	–	3	–	–		–
	AGIR	2	–	2	–	–		–
	DC	1	–	1	–	–		–
	Independent	–	–		–	1	1	1
Total		513			81			27

Since the official beginning of the election campaign in August 2022, Bolsonaro has incited either physical^[112] or verbal violence against his critics and political opponents, especially women,^[113] such as saying he and his supporters must "obliterate" opposition Workers' Party,^[114][115] smearing political commentators, journalists or interviewers on his social medias and speeches or even trying himself to grab a phone from a disillusioned voter and YouTuber who confronted him in a rally.^{[116][117][118][119][120]}

On 10 July 2022, city guard Marcelo Aloizio de Arruda, a Workers' Party activist, was murdered for political reasons, during his birthday party at a community center located in Foz do Iguaçu (state of Paraná). Jorge Guaranho, a federal prison officer, was arrested after storming the victim's party shouting that he was a supporter of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, and shooting at de Arruda. The shooter was also injured during the attack, due to the self-defense exercised by the victim,^[121][122] with some media outlets mistakenly reporting the men killed each other based on an incorrect statement from the local police. The police later backtracked from the statement.^[123] Marcelo de Arruda is survived by his wife and four young children.^[124] In the hours following the murder, Brazilian politicians, including some 2022 presidential candidates, and authorities condemned the attack, with some of them calling for calm.^[125][126] Also on 10 July, the local police opened an investigation into the crime's motivation^[127] and a day later the police chief officer leading the probe was found to have previously made online posts against the Worker's Party, potentially violating the due process because of abuse of power, which unofficially caused her to be removed from the investigation.^[128][129]

On 11 July, a judge ordered the pre-trial arrest of the murderer, and after four days the local police concluded there was no political motivation for the crime.^[130] However, on 18 July, both the prosecutors and de Arruda family disputed the conclusions, citing the fact that the police did not search the shooter's phone and did not investigate a possible connection with the suicide of the security service worker in the community center who had allegedly sent the party footage to the murderer,^{[131][132][133]} and in the following day the judge overseeing the case ordered the police to re-do the inquiry taking into account those claims.^[134] On 20 July, the prosecutors charged Guaranho with first degree murder for political reasons, and he was bound over for trial.^[135][136] On 10 August, following discharge from a hospital, Guaranho was temporarily placed under house arrest and ordered to wear an ankle monitor.^[137][138] Two days later he was sent to prison and on 13 August he was denied a release from jail.^[139][140]

On 8 September, two farm workers had an argument over politics and their presidential candidates in the 2022 Brazilian elections in a rural property in the city of Confresa in the western Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. Rafael Silva de Oliveira, a 24-year-old Bolsonaro supporter, reportedly stabbed to death his 42-year-old coworker Benedito Cardoso dos Santos, a supporter of former president Lula, after both had been arguing over politics for hours on the same day and the situation escalated to a physical altercation. During the fight, Rafael reportedly took a knife and started stabbing Benedito on his eyes, forehead and neck, after Benedito had punched Rafael on the chin, according to the local police. Following the murder, the suspect tried to behead the victim's body with an axe but eventually gave up and went to a local healthcare center seeking medical assistence, where he was seen by a doctor and subsequentely arrested by the police. The suspect is also under criminal investigations for unrelated crimes such as homicide, rape and fraud, according to the police and a court ruling.^{[141][142][143][144]}

On 13 September, farmer Luiz Carlos Ottoni, a 44-year-old Bolsonaro supporter, attacked city councilwoman Cleres Relevante of the Worker's Party and her aide in Salto do Jacuí, a small city in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Ottoni used his car to hit hers after reportedly following Relevante and her aide on their way back her home. Relevante told the police that right before the car attack, she noticed she and her aide were being followed by a car that occasionally kept doing burnouts, unexpected speed-ups and stops, as if to intimidate them. The car eventually rammed the back of hers and fled the scene. She called the police, who chased the attacker but were later informed that he had fatally suffered an accident while trying to escape the manhunt.^[145][146]

On 24 September, Antônio Carlos Silva, a farm worker, was murdered after he answered a question made by Edmilson Freire, a Bolsonaro supporter. According to eye-witnesses, Freire entered a bar and shouted "who supports Lula?", for which Silva said he would vote for Lula, then Freire stabbed him on the rib. Silva was seen by a doctor but did not survive the injury. Freire was arrested, and reportedly had criminal records for unrelated domestic violence.^[147]

On 25 September, Paulo Guedes, a federal deputy of the Worker's Party, suffered an assassination attempt during a motorcade rally in Montes Claros in the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. Guedes was reportedly at the top of a campaign rally truck when a police officer in plainclothes shot at the rally from the back seat of a car.^[148] The Federal Police later arrested and indicted the officer for two counts (election harassment and unlawful discharge of a firearm).^[149][150]

Bolsonaro has claimed that Brazilian electronic ballots are prone to vote rigging since at least 2015, when he was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and successfully pushed for a bill requiring voting machines to also print vote records. The Public Prosecutor's Office challenged the law citing secret ballot concerns,^[151][152] and the Supreme Federal Court suspended the law in June 2018.^[153][154]

During the 2018 elections, several social media platforms were flooded with fake claims that electronic ballots had been set up to favor candidates other than Bolsonaro, and that he had allegedly won the presidential election in the first round.^[155] However, after investigating such claims, authorities and even forensic experts ruled out any fraud in the ballots showing that some videos shared online were manipulated and edited to spread those allegations.^[156] As president, Bolsonaro has also insisted on voter fraud claims and pushed for an election audit,^[157] despite the voting machines already being audited and the vote counts being publicly available for verification.^[158]

Since 2018, some social media companies such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have restricted or taken down videos, livestreams, campaign adversting, online groups and channels, online-content monetization, and posts from Bolsonaro, his allies, and supporters linked to election-related disinformation, insurrection, and violence incitement on their own or by a court order for violating Brazilian law or those companies' policies.^{[159][160][161][162][163][164]} Despite signing agreements with the Superior Electoral Court in which they commit to fight disinformation,^[165][166] social networks acted slowly or ignored requests to remove it.^[167]

In July 2022, Bolsonaro addressed dozens of foreign diplomats, to which he made several claims of vulnerabilities in the country's electronic voting system. Following the presentation, the electoral authority issued a statement debunking several of the claims mentioned by Bolsonaro.^[168] Brazilian and international law experts, political analysts, and authorities have warned such allegations undermine democracy and pave the way for an unfounded election result challenge or even a self-coup, such as the 2021 United States Capitol attack. Similarly many experts fear that if Bolsonaro loses the election, the Brazilian military and local police officers, who helped carry out the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état in the past and are heavily present in his government, could play a significant role in either blocking the transition of power or being complicit with possible rioters trying to overthrow a newly elected administration.^{[6][7][8][9][10]}

On 28 September, four days prior to the first round of the elections, Bolsonaro's Liberal Party released a statement claiming a party report found that there were "several flaws" in the election process conducted by the Superior Electoral Court, saying, without providing any evidence, that the court met only "5% of the requirements for a proper election certification". The court dismissed those claims as "false and misleading", suggested that their purpose was to disturb the electoral process, and ordered an investigation into the authors of party's report.^[169][170]

Disinformation became a major topic in the 2022 Brazilian elections, since experiences from previous elections, especially in 2018, led to new approaches by individuals, including electoral officials, as well as private and public institutions.^[171] In such context, the Superior Electoral Court issued several law-like guidances regarding disinformation, such as further banning political ads on the internet, and tightening penalties for online breaches of the electoral law.

In October 2021, after an investigation by the police and prosecutors, the Superior Electoral Court ruled that Fernando Francischini, a hard-liner lawmaker in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná and ally of Bolsonaro, had violated electoral law by making false claims about the Brazilian electronic voting system in 2018. The court removed him from his seat in the state legislature and banned him from elected offices for the next eight years.^[172] Francischini filed an appeal against the ruling but it was later dismissed by the Supreme Federal Court.^[173]

On 20 September 2022, the Superior Electoral Court reported that it had received more than 15,500 election-related disinformation complaints over the prior four months.^[174]

On 24 September, an incident of bulk messaging occurred in Paraná, which is governed by an ally of Bolsonaro. Several phone users reported that they received a message from the official state alert-messaging service which read:^[175] "Bolsonaro is gonna win the elections in the first round! Otherwise, we are going to the streets to protest! We're gonna storm the Supreme Court and the Congress buildings! President Bolsonaro counts on us all!!" The Superior Electoral Court referred the alleged breach to prosecutors so they could investigate if any electoral crime was commited, and if so, to identify its perpetrators.^[176]

On 6 July, it was reported that some United States House of Representatives Democrats called for measures that would suspend American aid to the Brazilian Army if it intervened in the election.^[177][178] Nevertheless, the amendment author Tom Malinowski withdrew the requirement with no opposition on the House floor from any Representative but Adam Schiff.^[179]

On 26 July, the faculty of law of the University of São Paulo launched a pro-democracy petition as a response to Bolsonaro's attacks on the electronic ballots and the Brazilian voting system in general with over 3,000 signatures, among intellectuals, artists, law experts including retired justices of the Supreme Federal Court, businesspeople, and others.^[180] On 30 July, the petition topped 540,000 signatures and four days later, it reached 700,000 endorsements.^[181][182]

On 17 August, a report by Brazilian newspaper Metrópoles leaked an online conversation by a group of pro-Bolsonaro businessmen who expressed their preference for a coup d'état rather than a return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the presidency. The businessmen claimed that the Supreme Federal Court and Superior Electoral Court were suspected of election fraud, and proposed that a separate commission recount the votes. The messages also showed that business leader José Koury floated the idea of paying a bonus to employees who voted according to their employers' interests, if it were legal; and that malls chain businessman José Isaac Peres ordered "thousands of little flags" to be distributed to shopkeepers and customers in Barra World Shopping, one of his company's malls. In response to the report, the businessmen declared their support for democracy and denied any encouragement of illegal activity.^[183][184]

On 23 August, by order of the Supreme Federal Court, the Federal Police carried out search and seizure warrants on the homes, offices and other properties of the businessmen who allegedly supported a potential coup, including Koury, Peres, and billionaire Luciano Hang, among others.^[185] The court also ordered a freeze in their bank and social media accounts, their testimonies, and access to their financial records. The businessmen claimed that this order constituted political persecution and an attack on their freedom of speech.^[186]

On 3 September, medical journal The Lancet published an editorial calling the stakes in the Brazilian elections "high" and highlighting among other things that Bolsonaro, "who is known for his volatility and indirect incitement of violence, will not go quietly" in case he is defeated as predictions point to and that "he has already criticised Brazil's electronic voting system in the presence of foreign ambassadors". It concluded by saying "there is an unprecedented chance for new beginnings in Latin America; an opportunity to make positive changes to alleviate deep neglect, inequality, and violence. Let us hope that Brazil chooses to seize this opportunity."^[187][188]

On 20 September, it was reported that a group of "democratic nations" was planning in private an immediate recognition of the Brazilian election results as soon as they were officially announced in order to "shield the Brazilian democracy" and prevent "a constitutional limbo or a democracy collapse". That strategy was reportedly used in the wake of the 2020 United States presidential election, when some European and other Western countries rushed to "congratulate" then U.S. president-elect Joe Biden and thus isolate Donald Trump's efforts to delegitimize such voting.^[189]

•  United Nations – In June 2022, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, during a speech about human rights in various countries, cited concerns in Brazil, namely threats to environmentalists and indigenous people, police violence, racism, and attacks against politicians, especially those of African ancestry, women and LGBT people, ahead of the elections in October. She also appealed to the Brazilian authorities to ensure respect for fundamental rights and independent institutions.^[190]

•  United States – On 9 June, Brazilian president Bolsonaro and U.S. president Joe Biden met during the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. Anonymous sources reported to Bloomberg that Bolsonaro asked for Biden's help with the elections, claiming that a possible administration of former president Lula would be against U.S. interests. Biden changed the subject when approached, but emphasized the importance of keeping the integrity of Brazilian elections.^[191] Bolsonaro answered that he respected democracy and would respect the election results. Biden's response echoed the comments made by Elizabeth Bagley, U.S. ambassador to Brazil nominated by Biden. Portuguese/Spanish-language spokesperson of the U.S. Department of State Kristina Rosales argued that the elections needed to be transparent and monitored by international observers. However, Brazilian Minister of Justice Anderson Torres responded that international observers were of little help, and favored the participation of the Federal Police, the Armed Forces and civil society in the elections.^[192] On 20 July, spokesman for the U.S. Department of State Ned Price said that U.S. officials had spoken with senior Brazilian officials about the electronic voting system in Brazil, that the U.S. view was that the Brazilian electoral system was successfully tested for many years and was a model for other nations, and that the United States would follow the elections with great interest. His answer was in response to a question about the meeting with foreign diplomats hosted by Bolsonaro on 18 July, when the president made disputed claims about the Brazilian electoral system.^[193][194]

•  Hungary – During the International Ministerial Conference on Freedom of Religion or Belief, in July 2022 in London, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó requested a meeting with Brazilian Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights Cristiane Britto, to learn more about the Brazilian electoral environment. Britto commented about polarization and highlighted the similarities in the views of both countries regarding family issues. Szijjártó asked if there was anything that Hungary could do to help in Bolsonaro's reelection, and highlighted that Brazil had the largest Hungarian community in Latin America and that it mostly supported the incumbent president.^[195][196]

This section is an excerpt from Opinion polling for the 2022 Brazilian presidential election § Round 1.[edit]

The first round took place on 2 October 2022.^[197]

Chart

This section is an excerpt from Opinion polling for the 2022 Brazilian presidential election § Round 2.[edit]

The second round took place on 30 October 2022.^[197]

Bolsonaro vs. Lula

• Jair Bolsonaro 2022 presidential campaign
• Lula da Silva 2022 presidential campaign
• Simone Tebet 2022 presidential campaign