Do abstaining voters hold the key to Brazil’s 2026 presidential election?
Some 21 percent of Brazilian adults did not cast a ballot in the first round of voting. Will they affect the run-off?
An estimated 33.4 million voters did not cast a ballot in Brazil's general election, the highest rate in decades. How might they affect the run-off?
Sao Paulo, Brazil – The first time she voted in a Brazilian presidential election, in 2014, Larissa Campelo voted for centre-right Senator Aecio Neves. Four years later, in the next presidential race, she supported a centre-left candidate, former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad.
But ahead of what is expected to be one of Brazil’s tightest presidential run-offs ever, the 30-year-old mother of one has decided she has had enough with politics.
Luciana Veiga, a political science professor at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, also pointed out that Brazil’s abstainers are not merely a bloc of disillusioned voters waiting to be won over.