What’s at Stake for BRICS in Brazil’s Upcoming Presidential Election?

Many journalists and think tank experts have repeatedly attempted to identify the "weak link" inside BRICS, speculating that several of the original "founding five" member states may potentially seek to exit the group. And, Brazil has been no exception, with the idea of a BRICS exit coming up in the Brazilian domestic political discourse on several occasions, especially since the 2016 impeachment and removal from office of former President Dilma Rousseff, who currently serves as chair of the BRICS-affiliated New Development Bank. Proposals for a BRICS exit were floated during the 2016–2019 tenure of her immediate successor, centre-right former President Michel Temer, and again after the sudden rise to power of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who spent much of his 2019–2023 term waging a crusade against Chinese influence in South America’s largest country. But, neither discussion ultimately resulted in Brazil’s departure from the 10-nation association. Moreover, the return to office of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (universally known as "Lula") in 2023 has had the opposite effect, giving fresh momentum to Brazil’s affiliation with BRICS and to the group as a whole. Yet, Brazil’s upcoming general elections, including a presidential election to consist of a first round and potential second-round runoff in October 2026, may well be generating some unease about BRICS’ weight in the global balance of power and its standing in the international arena.

The incumbent president, a proven vote-getter and battle-hardened veteran of Brazilian politics, is determined to win election to a fourth term as head of state. Various public opinion polls had consistently shown for nearly a year that Lula enjoyed a substantial lead over many of his potential rivals, be it São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas, Minas Gerais Governor Romeu Zema, or media personality and singer Gusttavo Lima. Polling had been showing that Lula would defeat any of them in both election rounds, and that the sitting president could conceivably even take home an electoral victory in "one fell swoop" by winning a clear majority in the first round, thus eliminating the need for a second-round runoff. 

But, a major shake-up occurred in the political landscape in December 2025 when Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator representing Rio de Janeiro and son of the former president, announced his own candidacy, winning support from the right-wing camp overall and the personal endorsement of his father, ex-President Jair Bolsonaro, who was disqualified from running after being convicted and imprisoned for attempting to stage a coup. While the new candidate’s family name alone could guarantee him a solid base of 25–30% of voters, Flávio Bolsonaro himself and the conservatives overall have proven themselves to be effective campaigners, thus ensuring the junior Bolsonaro a stable rise in his polling numbers. Given the current sharp polarization in the electorate (as reflected in unfavourability ratings for both leading candidates in the range of 45–50%), Lula can no longer dream of counting on a first-round victory. Meanwhile, Senator Bolsonaro’s popularity continues to rise. According to several polls, Flávio may even have a chance to secure victory and win the top spot in a final runoff race against Lula, champion of the left-wing camp. Flávio Bolsonaro’s support is growing not only among die-hard fans of bolsonarismo and the wider right-wing electoral base, but he is also starting to gain support among voters who have not yet made up their minds, and the key political battle is to win over precisely such undecided voters.

The key power base for the Brazilian right remains the Centrão (the "big centre"), a bloc of conservative parties with a marked reputation for clientalism and patronage politics. In the  most recent municipal elections in October 2024, candidates representing the Centrão won the mayor’s office (known in Brazil as prefeitura, or prefecture) in 2,673 municipalities and 11 state capitals, while centrist parties, which often seek alliance partners from both the right and the left, govern 2,144 cities. In comparison, left-wing parties trail behind, controlling only 752 prefectures.

Five underlying themes can be clearly identified in the electoral campaign, with a sixth potentially taking shape (but that will be covered below).

The number one campaign issue remains the economic confidence of Brazilian households. In other words, the "Can I afford to buy a new refrigerator" index carries more weight with voters than leading macroeconomic indicators (which thus far have been positive under Lula 2.0). While the unemployment rate has reached its lowest level in more than a decade, many Brazilians feel less confident about their employment opportunities than they did a year ago. Pessimism about the economy is growing, with a majority of citizens saying that economic conditions have worsened over the past 12 months, even while expressing guarded optimism about longer-term prospects.

Of no less importance is the issue of crime, which has become a nationwide problem. Voters want to be assured that they will be safe when returning home at night. A controversial special police operation in 2025 against criminal gangs in Rio de Janeiro’s impoverished districts (known as favelas) has had a negative impact on the federal government’s crime-fighting record. If the federal government continues to shift responsibility for crime onto state governors and fails to develop a robust federal security and anti-crime policy, the incumbent administration in Brasília is certain to lose to whichever of its opponents promises the toughest crackdown on crime. Meanwhile, the key structural problem of corruption remains an issue that just won’t go away. Moreover, corruption is a festering perennial problem that no one group—neither the federal authorities nor the state governments; neither the incumbent administration nor the opposition— appears capable of dealing with effectively.

On the employment front, rapid change is taking place in the Brazilian labour market. The trade union movement—which traditionally was former union leader Lula’s bedrock base of support—has increasingly seen its power fade. Meanwhile, 15 million self-employed Brazilians want bank loans, fewer bureaucratic barriers, and clearer rules for doing business. Lula’s political home, the Workers’ Party (known as the "PT" from the Portuguese Partido dos Trabalhadores), has been seeing its electoral base shrink for some time already. The left desperately needs to revitalize its rhetoric and come up with some fresh slogans; otherwise, parties like the PT will find they have no place in the new Brazil that is now emerging.

The main political battle is to win over centrist voters, who make up about 10–15% of the overall electorate. These are educated, urban voters who tend to vote against—but not necessarily for—a given party or candidate. Centrist voters determined the outcomes of the 2018 and 2022 elections, and are equally likely to decide the result of the 2026 contest. As well, they pay close attention to the impact that US-Brazilian relations have on the country’s economy.

Overshadowing the entire election campaign is the long-term impact of the conviction and jail sentence handed down on former President Jair Bolsonaro for attempting to overturn the voting results after he lost the 2022 election and to stay in power by staging a self-coup in early 2023. In September 2025, in a truly historical precedent, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (known as the STF for Supremo Tribunal Federal) sentenced the former head of state to 27 years in prison. Opinions differ among ordinary Brazilians about the judicial verdict, however, with a large segment of society convinced that the STF overstepped its authority and issued a harsh sentence that was clearly politically motivated. Over the past 20 years, the STF has indeed accrued significant influence, intervening in the most diverse areas, ranging from healthcare policy during the COVID-19 pandemic to criminal cases brought against high-ranking political figures. This concentration of power in the STF has revived longstanding concerns about so-called "supremocracy" (Portuguese: supremocracia), or the domination by a single unelected body over a fractious, unstable political system. And, this issue has been a hot topic of discussion in this year’s election campaign. The fall of the Bolsonaro patriarch has not destroyed bolsonarismo. Public opinion polls show that various voter segments continue to fear, depending on their political allegiances, a return of the Bolsonaro clan to power and a continuation of Lula’s current presidency. Behind-the-scenes negotiations to lighten Bolsonaro’s sentence have been ongoing, while the Brazilian parliament, the National Congress (Portuguese: Congresso Nacional), has twice demonstrated a defiant stubbornness in relations with the executive branch, first by refusing to confirm Lula’s preferred candidate for a vacant seat on the STF (the first such rejection in nearly a century), and then by overriding Lula’s presidential veto of an amnesty bill (despite the clearly stated wishes of the government and the high court).

In this context, although Lula still retains the edge in opinion polls, his lead is rapidly melting away. This, in turn, has dampened any widespread expectations of a triumphant win for the incumbent president. Moreover, Lula’s weakness in the polls erodes any solid basis that might have existed for a coalition between the left and the centre, and only serves to turn up the heat in public debates over the democratic balance. Brazil must find a means of reconciling electoral legitimacy, judicial power, and public trust in a deeply polarized country. For its part, the left has nothing in particular to hope for. As before, Lula controls the state apparatus and machinery of government, and sets the agenda, and even has the capability to some degree to set the pace of Brazilian politics. But, times have changed: Lula 2.0 is not the same transformative leader who in his first two terms in office (2003–2011) oversaw the deep-rooted reform and transformation of Brazil itself, in turn prompting serious change across Latin America and in the world at large. Twenty million Brazilians were lifted out of poverty thanks to the policies pursued by previous Workers’ Party (PT) governments, but these voters have already become accustomed to Lula’s landmark Bolsa Familia social welfare and anti-poverty programme, thus diminishing its lure as a reason for voters to support the PT. Meanwhile, a proposed law on taxation of incomes above 50,000 Brazilian reals (BRL), which the government had been hoping to enact, has been blocked by the right-leaning National Congress, further fraying what few cooperative ties have remained between the legislature and the executive. Any economic misstep or miscalculation could quickly turn into serious losses.

In this highly tense situation, the sixth key campaign issue has taken on even greater significance, namely Brazil’s bilateral relationship with the United States, which only six months ago was not a major focus area for the government, or at least was not viewed negatively in Brasília. At a minimum, the Brazil-US relationship is an important issue as regards the Brazilian middle class’ confidence in the country’s future economic prospects should the current tensions and antagonism in relations between Brasília and Washington remain a factor.

But, here we must pose the question: What does all of this mean for BRICS?

Former President Jair Bolsonaro had promised to turn BRICS into RICS should he make a comeback and return to the presidency (together with promises to join the United States and Argentina in leaving the World Health Organization [WHO] and to allow Washington to build a military base in the strategic but sensitive Triple Frontier region, the trilateral border zone where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet, but, naturally, for the "exclusive purpose of 'fighting terrorism'"). The senior Bolsonaro himself is barred from the ballot and has been disqualified from running for office due to his prison sentence. But, his influence within the Brazilian right, which appears to have a real chance at electoral victory, is simply too strong not to take serious account of his declared intention to take Brazil out of BRICS.

In 2018, then-President Bolsonaro promised in no uncertain terms to decisively put an end to the Chinese presence in Brazil, an outcome which he not only failed to achieve but never even began to implement. Today, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not only the Federative Republic of Brazil’s leading trading partner, but Beijing is also a key geopolitical ally of Brasília. At that time, however, BRICS was in turn blindsided by a right hook from the president of Brazil, the host country of the association’s 2019 summit, when Bolsonaro publicly recognized the legitimacy of Juan Guaidó, the self-proclaimed president of Venezuela, which had the negative effect of blocking implementation of the BRICS Outreach format for cooperating with non-member nations at the summit and hindering its further development for several years afterwards.

But, only a year later, the Brazilian government had developed its own approach to interacting with the informal BRICS Outreach grouping and, while maximally distancing itself from the BRICS political agenda, began actively cooperating with countries participating in the Outreach programme on issues of trade and economic cooperation, technological development, and countering terrorism. In fact, by the eve of the 2022 Brazilian elections, Jair Bolsonaro had become so tightly attached to BRICS that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the expert community expressed not even the slightest concern about the future of BRICS regardless of who won: Lula or Bolsonaro. Ultimately, the key motivating factor for Brazil—opportunities for cooperation with several major global economic players—outweighed all other considerations and private disagreements with other BRICS members and the group as a whole.

In 2026, however, the situation is fundamentally different from what prevailed just four years ago. The United States under President Donald Trump, with his so-called "Donroe Doctrine," has been earnestly attempting to subordinate all of the countries of the Western Hemisphere to its will as the regional hegemon. The Trump 2.0 administration has also been actively threatening those BRICS countries that Washington believes are seeking to undermine the influence of the US dollar. The Bolsonaro clan has made no secret of its close ties to the current resident of the White House and stands ready and willing to march in lockstep with Trump’s policy initiatives. There would be a world of difference between President Jair Bolsonaro, who at best had a chilly relationship with the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden, and a—for now hypothetical—President Flávio Bolsonaro, who could potentially take power in the era of belligerent Trumpism under Biden’s Republican archrival.

For his part, Flávio Bolsonaro has thus far not taken any strong positions regarding BRICS, although he has conveyed his discomfort with the scale of the Chinese footprint in the Brazilian economy. Moreover, the junior Bolsonaro has made it clear that, if elected, he would channel Brazil’s strategic reserves of rare earth metals and other key resources to the United States to give Washington a boost in any geopolitical showdown with Beijing.

In this context, Lula’s recent visit to Washington for a summit meeting with Trump takes on an entirely different light, especially after the two leaders had directed insulting barbs and other unflattering comments at each other on several occasions. The agenda of the presidential talks focused on bilateral trade issues, especially tariffs, rare earth metals, and the US policy stance toward Latin America. The Brazilian president deflected questions from the press about the advisability of waiting for American investment in the rare earth metals mining sector, sharing only that his country was "seeking investment from the entire world."

For Trump, the summit with Lula, on May 7, 2026, came against the background of American discontent with the after-effects of the war in West Asia, the growing US debt and inflation rate, the ongoing deindustrialization of the US economy, and Trump’s own record of broken promises. For Lula, the summit took place just as his once-solid chances of winning a fourth term in office appear increasingly shaky and uncertain. Both leaders now need, like never before, to give their respective voters some positive economic news. Lula outlined his main hope at the end of his press conference: "Our relations are really good, which many thought was not possible over such a short time span. [It’s] love at first sight; [we have] great chemistry." If we translate things from diplomat-speak into plain English, this reads as follows: Brasília is hoping that Washington will not place its bets on the Bolsonaro clan and will refrain from giving Flávio direct assistance in his presidential campaign, hoping that instead the Americans will come to an agreement on cooperation with Lula’s current government. In a month’s time, the Brazilian and American delegations are scheduled to sit down for detailed talks on tariffs, something the Brazilians had previously refused to do.

The friendly Lula-Trump summit at the White House has given the Brazilian president an opportunity to highlight his clout in international politics and to objectively express the multipolar interests and trends that currently prevail across Latin America, even if certain right-wing governments and parties in the region do not support such ideas. The veteran Brazilian politician has achieved his main goal: to disprove the myth being promoted by the Bolsonaro clan that only they can ensure a constructive dialogue and cooperation with the United States (similar to what firebrand libertarian President Javier Milei has been doing in Argentina). The Brazil-US summit at the White House and the friendly atmosphere in which it took place have done much to neutralize and deflate the rhetoric of the bolsonaristos, who have pinned all of their hopes on a continuing confrontation (at least of the verbal kind) between Lula and Trump. As the old saying goes, "Paris is well worth a mass" (meaning a readiness to compromise one’s principles for pragmatic gains), and rare earth metals and tariffs may well prove to be the price that Lula is willing to pay to win re-election.

But, let’s return to our main question: Does all of this mean that Brazil may seek to break away from BRICS and jettison its relations with the PRC? If Lula wins re-election in October, there would likely be a negligible, if not zero, probability of this happening, although the Brazilian president would probably put a lid on any further rhetoric about de-dollarization (the more so that the entire de-dollarization drive seems to have hit a dead end), and he would likely tone down his criticism of Trump’s White House. On the flip side, however, any electoral triumph for Flávio Bolsonaro would represent a much greater risk for BRICS, although a Brazilian exit is not an absolute certainty. Many representatives of the Brazilian right can be just as pragmatic as their left-wing rivals. After all, China is investing billions in developing local infrastructure, including the construction of a railroad line from Salvador, State of Bahia, on Brazil’s Atlantic coast, to the Port of Chancay, north of Lima on Peru’s Pacific coast, as well as a bridge linking Salvador with the island of Itaparica, to name just a few projects. The Brazilians simply would not be able to raise equivalent investment funds in the United States, and any break with BRICS would only serve to complicate relations with Beijing.