A transparency gambit five days before the vote
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva submitted a formal petition to Brazil's Superior Electoral Court on Tuesday asking that banking, tax and telephone secrecy be lifted for himself and his immediate family over the last eight years. The request, however, is conditional: Senator Flavio Bolsonaro and the clan of former president Jair Bolsonaro must adopt exactly the same measure. The maneuver targets the offshore companies and accounts that courts and the press have been tracing around his opponent's family.[S1][S2][S3][S4]
Speaking during a campaign event in Sao Luis, in the northeastern state of Maranhao, Lula said he was willing for Brazilian society to know who is a thief and who is corrupt in the country, and said he wanted to see whether Flavio would have the courage to open his banking and telephone records. The dispute over transparency and mutual corruption accusations has thus moved to the center of the judicial arena.[S1]
Polls at a virtual tie, with the senator ahead
The latest Datafolha survey, published the previous Thursday, put Flavio Bolsonaro at 47% of voting intentions against 45% for Lula, a difference inside the two-point margin of error. In valid votes, the senator reaches 51% and the president 49%. In the first round of October 4, the senator took 47.03% of valid votes and Lula 45.16%, a gap of 2.2 million votes.[S1]
Leandro Gabiati, a political science doctor and director of Dominium Consultoria in Brasilia, told LA NACION that Lula is numerically behind in the polls and needs to seize the political initiative in this final week. He described the challenge as part of that logic: provoking the adversary, forcing a response and trying to wear him down.[S1]
Gabiati also pointed to limits in the strategy. In such a polarized election, he argued, corruption accusations do not change the convictions of voters who already hold a defined position and are unlikely to alter the behavior of undecideds. Those voters, he said, are probably waiting for more concrete answers on everyday problems, especially the economy, the cost of living and public security.[S1]
What the petition covers, and a bid to annul a candidacy
The petition signed by Lula was read at the Workers' Party campaign headquarters in Brasilia by the party's national communications secretary, Eden Valadares, alongside party lawyer Angelo Ferraro. It authorizes the release of data belonging to the president, his wife, Janja da Silva, and his children Lurian, Marcos Claudio, Fabio Luis, Sandro Luis and Luis Claudio, and proposes that the information be published through the electoral court or another publicly accessible site.[S1]
On the other side, the document demands the same of Flavio and his relatives: former president Jair Messias Bolsonaro, Rogeria Bolsonaro, Carlos Bolsonaro, Eduardo Bolsonaro, Jair Renan Bolsonaro and Fernanda Antunes Figueira Bolsonaro, the candidate's wife. It also reaches legal entities in which the candidates are partners or administrators, or on whose accounts they appear as financial managers or master users. For Lula, the campaign said there is only one such company, LILS Palestras, Eventos e Publicacoes, in which he is a non-managing partner.[S1]
The list attributed to Flavio is longer. Citing press reports, the document mentions a sole-practitioner law office, the insurer All In One, the company Bolsonaro Digital and Bravo Grafeno Tecnologia e Inovacao, which the text says shares an address with the figure known as Careca do INSS, a central name in the scandal over irregular discounts on pensioners' benefits. It also mentions Alcazar Holdings, an offshore company registered on the island of Madeira in Portugal and owned by lawyer Willer Tomaz, on whose bank account the candidate would appear as a master user according to a Federal Police investigation reported by the press.[S1]
The text argues that public disclosure of the two candidates' banking, tax and telephone data before Wednesday the 21st is essential for Brazilians to be properly informed and able to decide freely whom to vote for, invoking article 14 of the Constitution on administrative probity and morality in office. Valadares said after the reading that the moment of truth had arrived, referring to weeks of crisis, confusion and news coverage that may have left part of the population unsure about who is who. Separately, a campaign source said Lula's team would also ask the electoral court on Tuesday to annul Flavio Bolsonaro's candidacy, based on an alleged interference by Meta through algorithmic manipulation intended to harm the president in his bid for a fourth term.[S1]
