TSE President Nunes Marques Restores Dallagnol Senate Run in Paraná

In a dramatic, last-minute intervention on the morning of Sunday, October 4, the president of Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Justice Kassio Nunes Marques, suspended a previous ruling that had barred former anti-corruption prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol from running for a Senate seat in the southern state of Paraná. The decision was signed at 7:45 a.m., exactly 15 minutes before voting stations opened nationwide for the first round of the 2026 general elections.

The sudden reversal highlights the deep polarization and legal volatility surrounding high-profile anti-corruption figures in Brazil's electoral process. Dallagnol, running under the banner of the right-leaning Novo party, rose to national prominence as the lead prosecutor of the massive "Lava Jato" (Car Wash) corruption probe, which jailed numerous top politicians before facing intense political and judicial backlash. The southern state of Paraná, where the probe was centered, remains a conservative stronghold where anti-corruption sentiment runs deep.

The legal battle over Dallagnol's political future has been a game of judicial tug-of-war. On Saturday night, TSE Justice Floriano de Azevedo Marques issued an individual ruling that disqualified Dallagnol and ordered his votes to be declared null. That disqualification was rooted in a 2023 TSE decision that stripped Dallagnol of his congressional seat, ruling that he had resigned from the Federal Prosecution Service to bypass pending disciplinary investigations.

However, Justice Nunes Marques, the court's president, ruled Sunday morning that a single justice could not unilaterally nullify a candidacy on the eve of the election without a collective decision by the full court. Nunes Marques wrote that changing a candidate's status hours before voting begins risks causing "grave injury to the public electoral order" and confusing voters. He did not rule on whether Dallagnol is ultimately eligible to hold office, leaving that decision to the full bench.

As a result of the Sunday morning order, Dallagnol’s status has been restored to "deferred with appeal". His name and number remained on the electronic voting machines, and the votes cast for him in Paraná will be fully processed and counted during the evening tally. However, their final validity remains subject to a future, definitive ruling by the full TSE Plenary, leaving the ultimate outcome of the Paraná Senate race in limbo.