Internal war in Brazil’s judiciary shakes election campaign one month before vote

Four weeks before Brazil’s elections, the country’s political center of gravity has shifted from campaign rallies to the Three Powers Plaza in Brasília, where two Supreme Federal Court justices are accusing each other of criminal conduct.

The attorney general has asked for a Federal Police investigation to be annulled, while the court’s president is trying to contain a rupture that reaches both President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his main opponent, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. The dispute grew out of the Banco Master case, involving the bank liquidated in November 2025 and its former owner, Daniel Vorcaro, who is jailed over what the article describes as the largest banking fraud in Brazilian history.

This week, Justice André Mendonça, appointed by Bolsonaro and the case’s rapporteur since February, lifted the confidentiality of a 218-page Federal Police report on messages found on Vorcaro’s cellphone. The report says Vorcaro asked Justice Alexandre de Moraes whether he should leave the country two days before his arrest. He also asked Moraes to intervene with Attorney General Paulo Gonet and Federal Police chief Andrei Rodrigues.

Investigators also found draft contracts worth 131 million reais, or about 25 million dollars, between Vorcaro’s companies and the law firm of Moraes’s wife, Viviane Barci de Moraes. The drafts were modified before signing by a user identified as “Minister Alexandre de Moraes.” The messages show frequent contact in which the banker sought advice and information from Moraes, although the judge’s replies were not preserved. Much of the conversation used WhatsApp’s disappearing-view function.

Moraes denies irregularities. He is one of Brazil’s most powerful judges, having overseen proceedings over the January 8, 2023 coup attempt and served as rapporteur in the case that ended with Jair Bolsonaro’s conviction and a 27-year prison sentence. His critics include Bolsonaro supporters and members of the legal world, who have questioned alleged abuse of authority and the concentration of power in his office.

Political scientist Murilo Medeiros of the University of Brasília described the dispute as “a crisis that is not right-wing, left-wing, or centrist: it is a crisis of the Brazilian political system as a whole, and it has a considerable impact on voters’ mood.”

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It is a crisis that is not right-wing, left-wing, or centrist: it is a crisis of the Brazilian political system as a whole, and it has a considerable impact on voters’ mood.