Novo asks TSE to annul Lula and Alckmin over betting ban

Brazil's Novo party has filed an electoral investigation action with the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE) against the ticket of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Vice-President Geraldo Alckmin. The action, registered as 0603194-42.2026.6.00.0000, was assigned on 20 October to the corregedor-geral eleitoral, minister Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva. The petition is dated 19 October and was signed electronically on the morning of 20 October by lawyers Lucas Bessoni Coutinho de Magalhães, Paulo Augusto Fernandes Fortes and Lucas Menezes Elias of the Belo Horizonte office Bessoni & Fortes.

Novo asks the TSE to find abuse of political power under article 22 of Lei Complementar 64/1990, to annul the registrations or diplomas of Lula and Alckmin, and to declare both ineligible for eight years. The party argues that Medida Provisória 1.394/2026, which banned fixed-odds betting, was issued nine days before the first round and formed part of 35 normative acts the government used in 2026 to unbalance the presidential contest. The MP prohibited the operation, offering, intermediation and advertising of fixed-odds betting, extinguished authorisations granted under Lei 14.790/2023 and revoked most of that law. Article 7 gave sites 10 days to go offline and barred new funds from entering bettors' accounts from publication.

The petition focuses on dates. The 10-day period ended the day after the first round, and the Finance Ministry announced that bettors could withdraw balances until 23:59 on 5 October. Novo places that deadline alongside others it says were designed around the electoral calendar: a diesel subsidy of R$2.12 per litre maintained until 26 October, the day after the second round; petrol without federal taxes from 10 October to 9 November; and adjusted Bolsa Família payments completed for all families on 21 October, four days before the vote. The party cites TSE precedent REspe 73646, in which a mayor sent a property-tax amnesty bill to the council on the eve of an election and vetoed it two days after the vote; the court held that the later veto did not erase the abuse.

The action also cites press reports that the decision to ban betting came from the election campaign, and that internal PT polling showed the veto was popular among women, an electorate in which Lula was seeking an advantage. It notes that two weeks before the MP, Lula received victims of betting at the Palácio da Alvorada and announced that new measures would come soon, and that the signing took place at an event in São Paulo alongside the launch of Desenrola 3.0. On responsibility, Novo says Lula personally led the announcement of the ban.

On fiscal cost, the action uses the executive's own estimate, reproduced in the Senate's executive summary: lost tax revenue of R$1.541bn in 2026, R$5.150bn in 2027 and R$5.330bn in 2028, about R$12bn over three years. According to the petition, the economic team acknowledged that the 2027 budget bill would need to be changed to cover the loss. Novo calculates that the 2026 measures leave a bill of about R$31bn for the following year, adding the Bolsa Família adjustment, the end of the so-called blusinhas tax and the lost betting revenue.

The petition states that Novo does not defend online betting and does not question the legitimacy of restricting it; the action's focus, it says, is the sequence of events. Operators, clubs and entities are challenging the MP at the Supremo Tribunal Federal in ADIs 8024, 8027 and 8028, under minister Luiz Fux. At the TSE the same MP is characterised as a popular-appeal measure serving re-election. According to an O Globo report after the first round, Lula's own campaign concluded that the betting ban harmed its result; Lula finished the first round second with 45.16% against 47.03% for Flávio Bolsonaro.

The corregedor-geral will now examine the petition and decide whether to notify Lula and Alckmin to present a defence. Novo asks the Casa Civil to send the explanatory memoranda, technical notes and opinions for the 35 measures, including the justifications for urgency and the reasons for the chosen effective dates, including MP 1.394. It also asks the Finance Ministry to detail the acts that set amounts and deadlines. The Ministério Público Eleitoral will act as fiscal da lei. This is Novo's second AIJE against the ticket in 2026; the first, filed on 8 August, concerns the Acadêmicos de Niterói parade at Carnival. Asked by Poder360, the Lula campaign had not commented by the time of publication. The second round is scheduled for Sunday 25 October.