A corruption scandal engulfing Brazil’s Supreme Court has left the institution responsible for convicting former president Jair Bolsonaro mired in crisis, reshaping the country’s political landscape days before the 25 October presidential runoff.
Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son, is now the frontrunner to defeat the leftist incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the second round, a reversal many political observers attribute in part to the turmoil surrounding Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
Moraes, who oversaw the trial that sentenced Jair Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison for attempting a coup, is at the centre of an investigation into his wife’s law firm’s roughly £20m contract with Daniel Vorcaro, the banker accused of masterminding Brazil’s largest banking fraud.
Investigators subsequently uncovered links between Vorcaro and at least four other justices, meaning half of the court’s 10 sitting members have now been drawn into the affair.
The crisis intensified last month when a televised session of the court broadcast a bitter exchange of insults between Moraes and a fellow justice, followed by a series of contradictory rulings that dominated public debate for weeks.
Political scientists say the scandal has alienated undecisive voters, who are decisive in an electorate split between similarly sized left and right blocs.
“These are people who thought that, just as they see congress, the country’s highest court had become corrupt, too,” said Camila Rocha, a political scientist at the University of Brasília who studies Brazil’s new right.
Rocha, who spent recent months interviewing undecised voters, said many identified Moraes as the principal antagonist, reversing his earlier standing as the judge who jailed Jair Bolsonaro.
Lula’s campaign has sought to distance the president from the scandal. The day after the first-round vote, Lula said he had to “carry on his back … the promiscuity” of the Supreme Court.
His campaign coordinator, Edinho Silva, said the president had “paid the price” for the court’s institutional damage in the eyes of society.
Conrado Hübner Mendes, a constitutional law professor at the University of São Paulo, said Moraes had “embraced the role of heroic protagonist” and subsequently “thrown that away in the most mediocre way possible.”
Moraes denies any wrongdoing. He stated he had never ruled on any case involving Vorcaro and therefore faced no conflict of interest, while challenging the authenticity of text messages that suggest a close personal relationship with the banker.
Vorcaro, arrested in November as he prepared to board a private jet from São Paulo to Malta, is accused of operating a scheme through his Banco Master involving aggressive fundraising, unrealistic returns and falsified balance sheets that left an estimated £9bn shortfall, much of it involving public money and pensioners’ savings.
The banker’s phone contained messages, sent two days before his arrest, in which he asked someone police later identified as Moraes whether he should leave the country. Moraes denies being the recipient and has accused fellow Justice André Mendonça, appointed by Jair Bolsonaro, of weaponising the police against him for electoral reasons.
Mendonça is one of four additional justices suspected of links to Vorcaro. An institute he founded allegedly took an £800,000 loan from one of the banker’s associates, which he maintains has been repaid. Investigators uncovered connections ranging from a £64m contract to an alleged £5.2m stake in a fund tied to Vorcaro among the other justices. All deny wrongdoing.
On Monday, Moraes authorised Flávio Bolsonaro to resume visiting his father, lifting a 90-day ban imposed in July after the senator read out a letter from the former president about the elections.
The scandal also entangles Flávio Bolsonaro directly. He is being investigated over the £20m he was recorded asking Vorcaro to provide for a biopic about his father. One suspicion is that the funds covered living and travel expenses for his brother, former congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, during his self-imposed exile in the US, where he lobbied the Trump administration against Lula. Flávio Bolsonaro said all the money went towards the film, which remains without a release date.
Until Friday, no reports had connected Lula to the affair. Veja magazine then reported that Vorcaro claimed to have paid £4.5m to finance a 2024 Oliver Stone documentary about the president. However, federal police and the public prosecutor’s office stated the banker made no such allegation nor provided supporting evidence in his testimony. Lula denied receiving any money from Vorcaro.
The far right’s sweeping victory in the first round is also set to deliver a more conservative congress in 2027, including the senate majority needed to impeach Supreme Court justices — a demand among Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters since the former president’s conviction.
Mendes said the justices had “handed Bolsonarismo something it still didn’t have: an impeachable offence.”
Even if no justice is removed, a Flávio Bolsonaro presidency would allow him to appoint at least four new justices as current members retire, potentially giving the Bolsonaro family six of the court’s 11 seats.
“We can expect a court completely servile to the government,” Mendes said, adding that the separation of powers would be at risk and that the justices themselves bore part of the responsibility.
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