MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolsonaro's PL candidates record shocking victories nationwide

The PL will be the strongest political force in the Lower House, where impeachments start, Folha noted

In addition to questioning what most pollsters had forecast for the presidential elections, Jair Bolsonaro's political alliance achieved encouraging results Sunday as the Liberal Party snatched 99 seats in Congress (23 more than it already has).

In the Lower House, 20% of MPs will be of Bolsonarist allegiance, while the PL will also have 8 more sets on the Senate for a total of 14 seats out of the 27 at stake over the weekend. The Senate is made up of 81 seats.

With Sunday's results, the PL becomes the largest group in the Upper House and the first in the whole Congress, regardless of the Oct. 30 presidential runoff.

According to a political analysis printed by Folha de Sao Paulo, the Lower House is where an impeachment trial starts.

At least nine former ministers under Bolsonaro will hold Congressional seats, including former Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, who left the government due to suspicions of corruption, and former Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello who was forced to resign when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out due to his controversial management of the crisis. Pazuello was even the most voted deputy in the state of Rio de Janeiro, the third most populated. Another PL candidate, Nikolas Ferreira, was the most voted deputy in the country, with more than 1.4 million votes, at only 26 years of age.

The list of Bolsonarist Senators includes retired footballer Romario (reelected) and former astronaut and former Science minister Marcos Ponte, who ousted Lula's ally, Márcio França, a favorite in the polls.

Three other former ministers, Damares Alves (Women); Tereza Cristina (Agriculture) and Rogerio Marino (Development), and current Vice-President, Hamilton Mourao were also elected to the Senate, which in 2023 must confirm two supreme court judges.

Also entering the Upper House are former judge and former minister Sergio Moro, who broke up with Bolsonaro, and former Prosecutor Dalton Dellagnol. Both of them are arch-rivals of Lula from their time in the “Lava Jato” scandal. Both of them had Lula jailed for 19 months, but the sentence was overturned for procedural irregularities.

In Rio de Janeiro, Claudio Castro (PL) was elected, but the biggest surprise occurred in Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populated and richest state, with the partial victory in the first round of PL's Tarcisio Freitas, a former Minister of Infrastructure, who was the underdog in most the polls against former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad, a Lula dauphin who lost to Bolsonaro in the 2018 presidential elections. They too will meet in a runoff.

Sunday's elections also meant the arrival to Parliament of trans MPs Erika Hilton, Duda Salabert, and Robeyoncé Lima.