The Liberal Party (PL, in Portuguese), president Jair Bolsonaro’s party, has the largest number of police officers running in the elections: 232, which accounts for 13% of all the 1,866 candidates linked to security forces.
The survey was conducted by the Brazilian Forum on Public Security (FBSP, in Portuguese) using DivulgaCand data, which is the Superior Electoral Court system to register candidacies. According to the agency, there are 1,866 police officers running in the 2022 elections, a rise of 27% compared to 2018.
Right-wing parties have 94.9% of all these candidacies. Besides the Liberal Party, the other parties with the largest numbers of security agents running in the elections are the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB, in Portuguese), with 141 candidates, and the Republicans Party, with 137 candidates. On the opposite side of the political spectrum, there was a decrease in the number of security agents who decided to run in the elections for a leftist party: in 2018, it was 2.9%; this year, it is only 1.4%.
Among Brazilian states, Rio de Janeiro has the most candidates, with 251 police officers running in this year’s elections. The second and third positions are, respectively, São Paulo (238) and Minas Gerais (126).
Security agents from the Military Police (which is different from the military police in the USA, for instance) are the majority among these candidacies: 807 candidates, 245 of whom are retired or officially removed officers. The Civil Police (which also refers to a different kind of civil police from that of the USA) has 188 candidates.
In Brazil’s Military Police bylaw, after ten years of service, police officers can apply for leave to run in the elections without losing their position.
