The president () instructed his party’s leadership to look for young candidates with a view to renewing the party. In one specific case, the head of government intervened directly to launch a pre-candidacy for federal deputy in São Paulo.
A is currently the third highest average age in the Chamber. Lula has expressed concern to allies for years about the lack of renewal in the party. At the beginning of 2026, he publicly demonstrated discontent with barriers imposed on possible new candidates for the party.
Now 80 years old, Lula said during the 2022 campaign that, if elected, he would not seek a new term as president in 2026. At the time. Afterwards, the PT member started to say that he would only run for re-election if he was the only one in his political field capable of defeating Bolsonarism.
The deputy (PT-CE), coordinator of the PT’s GTE (Electoral Working Group), who discusses the party’s electoral strategy, said that there was a recommendation from Lula to look for young candidates.
“Lula always says that it is very important to renew the PT”, declared Guimarães. “We’re getting old, right? This youth has to come in to hold back the PT. We’re going through, it needs a generational renewal. I think that’s his concern,” said the deputy, who is leader of the government in the Chamber.
The average age of PT deputies is 59.2 years old. Only the PC benches at B and PDT are, on average, older. The PL bench, the main opposition party to Lula, is eighth in the ranking, with an average age of 53.8 years old — the same as the general group of deputies in the House.
The party’s national secretary of Youth, Julia Köpf, 29, said that the party is “running after” young candidates. “So far we are at a very early stage. I think there is a very willing youth, they know that the mission of facing (PL-RJ) is not easy”, he says.
A Sheet found that in almost all cases the President of the Republic does not enter directly into the conversations. PT leaders, however, inform Lula about some of the candidacies of young people in coordination in the states and he usually shows approval in certain situations.
In the case of São Paulo councilor Luna Zarattini, 32, the head of government intervened directly. The PT member did not intend to run for a federal deputy mandate, but Lula asked her to run.
In addition to the young profile, the President of the Republic was interested in the size of Luna’s electorate. She received 100,921 votes for the São Paulo City Council in 2024 and is considered a strong candidate regardless of generational criteria.
Lula also showed his allies sympathy for the pre-candidacy of state deputy Ana Júlia Ribeiro (PT-PR), 25. The initial plan was for her to seek re-election in the Legislative Assembly of Paraná, but the scenario changed when the President of the Republic asked the Minister of Institutional Relations, , .
The minister has the mandate of federal deputy. She was elected in 2022 with 261,247 votes, the second highest vote in the state. Ana Júlia and the president of the party’s Paraná directory, Arilson Chiorato, should run for federal deputy targeting Gleisi’s electorate.
Another pre-candidacy for the Chamber that left Lula satisfied, according to politicians close to the head of government, was that of state deputy Rosa Amorim (PT-PE). She is 29 years old and is linked to .
The young electorate was important for Lula to win (PL) in the 2022 election. The last Datafolha survey carried out before the second round that year showed that the PT member had 50% of voting intentions against 37% for Bolsonaro among voters aged 16 to 24. The margin of error for this edition of the survey was three percentage points.
In the most recent edition of the survey, aimed at this year’s election, the president does not lead among younger people. Lula has 43% of voting intentions for the second round among voters aged 16 to 24. Flávio Bolsonaro, son of Jair Bolsonaro and likely main opposition candidate, appears with 44%. In this case, the trimming margin of error is five percentage points.
The most recent survey, released in March, . The PT member has 46% and the Bolsonarist, 43%. In this case, the margin of error is two points.
The margin varies depending on the size of the same survey because it is influenced by the size of the voter sample. The number of respondents to arrive at the overall number is greater than the number of respondents aged 16 to 24, which is why the total result has a smaller margin of error.
Party members report, in private conversations, that support for new candidates causes internal disputes. Established politicians sometimes resist the idea of sharing spaces with new actors and losing influence. One of the main points of friction tends to be the sharing of campaign financing resources.
The President of the Republic himself indirectly mentioned the phenomenon in a recent speech. “In the PT, we talk a lot about equality, but it’s full of fellow deputies who don’t want another deputy to leave so as not to compete with him,” Lula declared to an audience of PT members at the beginning of February.
The PT had prohibited deputies from running for re-election for the party after serving three consecutive terms in the same Legislative House, but in 2025 before the measure came to fruition.
