The year 2025 was marked by intense disputes in the Brazilian political landscape, with constant clashes between branches of government and a Congress with an increasingly conservative profile, which directly impacts the agenda of the federal government.
“One of the important milestones of 2025 is that Congress, and especially the Chamber of Deputies, is being guided by the parties of the centrão and by the figure of Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB) as its president, as well as by Representative Arthur Lira (PP-AL), who has acted as an adviser with the aim of wearing down the federal government,” contextualizes political scientist Paulo Roberto de Souza.
Against this backdrop, the relationship between the Lula government and Congress illustrates the challenges for 2026. These tensions, which already signal the start of the electoral pre-campaign, have moved to the center of the debate. Speaking to Conexão BdF, on Rádio BdF, the expert explains that the candidacies of the far right and the opposition, such as the possible candidacy of Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicanos-SP), are intended to further increase the power of these forces in the Legislature, since the power of the centrão in the Chamber of Deputies has been consolidating since the coup against President Dilma Rousseff (PT) in 2016.
“Inevitably, everything that happens from January onward, with the end of the recess, will involve calculations far more concerned with the elections, presidential, legislative and gubernatorial. At the national level, the presidential and legislative races are central. The tendency, in my reading, is for this pressure from the centrão to gradually decrease,” he assesses.
For example, regarding the Dosimetry Bill, Souza points out that the president of the republic is inclined to veto the proposal.
“If the law returns to Congress and is then sent to the Supreme Federal Court (STF), my reading is that the Legislature itself, when overturning the vetoes, will already make some changes. It will be thinking about the electoral calendar and very concerned with pressure and public exposure, which represent an unavoidable political cost for the centrão,” he adds.
The political scientist recalls that the centrão is a group of conservative political parties that emerged in the National Constituent Assembly as heirs to the former ARENA, the party of the military dictatorship, “a more conservative bloc obviously aligned with the right.”
“The second point is that these parties, although they are right-wing, are very concerned with being part of the government, regardless of which government it is or on what terms. For example, today their power is so great that they take part in the government but also feel very comfortable applying pressure and often voting against the very government of which they are a part,” he highlights.
Based on this scenario, the analyst observes fragmentation within the centrão, considering various contexts, both regional and in terms of alignment with the presidency or with the opposition, which “more or less shows how this centrão will behave in the presidential elections.”
“As a result of the increasingly positive numbers that the government has been achieving, economically, socially, and in opinion polls, the tendency is that, although split between support for and opposition to the government, this support will tend to grow,” he explains. He adds: “Because no one wants to risk a possible Lula 4 government without the ability to negotiate, since those who support have greater bargaining power and, obviously, greater priority for having their demands met.”
Advance of the centrão in the Legislature in 2026
Currently, the National Congress is considered one of the most retrograde, as can be seen in the agendas it puts forward. In addition to the Dosimetry Bill, there was also, for example, the so-called “Devastation Bill,” a controversial legislative proposal that seeks to change Brazil’s environmental licensing rules, allowing faster and more automatic permits for various projects, weakening technical analysis and environmental oversight.
For the new legislature that begins next year, the political scientist expects change. Given the fragility of the far right after the arrest of Jair Bolsonaro and its internal disputes, the trend is for an advance in centrão representation in the legislative arena.
“This large representation will be both in the Senate and, especially, in the Chamber of Deputies,” he says. “Because the main centrão parties currently have concentrated in their hands a little over 5,000 Brazilian mayoralties, which gives them support and organizational capacity to launch new candidacies. This shows a tendency for these parties to become the largest recipients of campaign funding,” he concludes.
