The Minister of Finance, confirmed this Friday (13) that he will be a candidate in the 2026 elections, although he avoided saying that he will run for the Government of São Paulo.
Haddad’s candidacy for Palácio dos Bandeirantes, in opposition to the current governor, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), is already taken for granted among party members, but the minister had not yet publicly acknowledged that he will run — he must leave his current position next week to dedicate himself to the electoral race.
“I’m going to participate in the elections,” said Haddad in an interview with the program 20 minutes, on the Opera Mundi portal. “I will announce this after I leave the ministry, for which I will be a candidate.”
he had been pressuring the assistant to become a candidate, but the minister resisted for fear of losing the election and ending his political career with a defeat. His initial intention was to collaborate with Lula’s re-election campaign, developing the government plan.
The apparent rise of (PL) in opinion polls, however, led the minister to rethink his own choice.
Without mentioning Flávio, Haddad acknowledged this Friday that “the scenario has become more complicated.”
“I imagined that the 2026 scenario would be easier for President Lula. I really did. At the end of last year, I said ‘I think it will start the year well and then we will be able to discuss São Paulo a little more calmly, find out if it is not better to project a new name, if it is not better to eventually support a candidate from another party other than the PT’. I was exploring these possibilities”, he said.
“I told the president ‘I’m not going to be a candidate’, and that was it. But [durante] During these three months of talking to him, the scenario became more complicated. The sky is less blue than I imagined last year,” he added.
According to , Flávio has consolidated himself in the opposite camp to Lula in this year’s presidential race. The senator from Rio de Janeiro approached the PT member in the first round simulations and technically tied in the second round, scoring 43% compared to his rival’s 46%. The margin of error is plus or minus two points.
