Banco Master scandal shakes Brazil's presidential race as voters head to polls

October 2, 2026 at 09:36 PM1 min

This digest was compiled by AI from multiple sources — links to the originals are below.

Brazil's presidential election on Sunday pits incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva against right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro in a tight race. Both candidates face high rejection rates, with 56 percent of voters refusing Bolsonaro and 54 percent refusing Lula, according to a late September Quaest poll. The Banco Master fraud scandal has deepened voter disillusionment and injected chaos into the campaign.

Key Facts

Brazil's first-round presidential vote is scheduled for Sunday, with incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 80, seeking a fourth term against Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, 45.
A late September Quaest poll found 56 percent of respondents would refuse to vote for Bolsonaro and 54 percent would refuse Lula.
Banco Master, a mid-sized lender, sold high-yield deposit certificates offering returns up to 140 percent of Brazil's benchmark interbank rate without sufficient assets to sustain them.
Former President Jair Bolsonaro, father of candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year prison sentence for an alleged coup attempt.

The Banco Master Scandal

Banco Master grew aggressively over the last decade by selling high-yield deposit certificates, some offering returns up to 140 percent relative to Brazil's benchmark interbank rate. The bank lacked the assets needed to sustain that output, leading to one of the largest fraud scandals in modern Brazilian history. Business leaders, political figures, regulators, and judges have been swept up in the scandal, which has cast a shadow over Brazil's political sphere.

Electoral Fallout

Both Lula and Bolsonaro have faced fallout from the Banco Master scandal, contributing to high rejection rates among voters. Anthony W Pereira, head of the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University, said the bases of both candidacies are unhappy with how the campaigns have gone. Pereira noted that high rejection rates help explain low mobilisation and enthusiasm among Brazilian voters.