Minister Nunes Marques, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), should be elected president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) this Tuesday and arrive at the helm of the Court promising a management marked by discretion, predictable votes on sensitive topics and a declared commitment to reducing political tension in an election year.
The choice at the TSE is protocol, following the criterion of seniority among the STF ministers appointed to the Court, and occurs after the announcement of Cármen Lúcia’s early departure from the presidency of the court. With this, it will be up to Nunes Marques to lead the entire organization of the 2026 elections, from regulating campaigns to judging disputes involving candidacies and parties.
Behind the scenes, the assessment of the court’s interlocutors is that the minister arrives at the post with a different brand from his recent predecessors, less accustomed to public protagonism, but with the ability to articulate away from the spotlight. The reading is that Nunes Marques maintains a “low friction” profile, working internally with different wings of the Court and avoiding direct public clashes.
The assessment is shared within the court itself. Minister André Mendonça, who is expected to assume the vice-presidency of the TSE, has already publicly stated that the future summit will have a “discreet profile”, with activities focused on “impartiality” and the search for stability in the electoral process.
— The TSE will be chaired by Minister Kássio, with me as vice-president in the elections, third member of Supreme Minister Dias Toffoli, already with TSE experience. Minister Kássio and I have a low profile, so let’s wait for discretion, impartiality, justification for these decisions, listening to parties on all sides – said Mendonça at an event at the end of 2025.
Born in Teresina, Nunes Marques built his career outside the large legal centers. He was a lawyer, electoral judge in Piauí and judge at the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region (TRF-1) before being appointed to the STF in 2020 by then president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), in the vacancy opened with the retirement of minister Celso de Mello.
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In the Supreme Court, he consolidated his performance with votes frequently aligned with more conservative positions on issues of customs and criminal guarantees, although, according to ministers, without joining harsher public clashes within the Court.
At the TSE, where he has been since 2021, Nunes Marques served first as a substitute and then as a permanent minister, assuming the vice-presidency in 2024. His performance was marked by minority positions in high-profile cases, such as in the trial that made Bolsonaro ineligible, when he was defeated when he voted in favor of the former president.
More recently, he was also isolated in part of the trial that discussed the situation of the former governor of Rio de Janeiro, Cláudio Castro (PL), when he adopted a divergent position from the majority in a case with a direct impact on the state’s electoral board. While most ministers understood that Castro abused political and economic power in the 2022 elections, when he was running for re-election, using the structure of the Ceperj Foundation and the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj) to hire canvassers, Nunes Marques understood that there was no evidence of the then governor’s direct participation in the scheme investigated.
Despite votes that were sometimes defeated, ministers interviewed under reserve point out that Nunes Marques maintains good internal traffic, a characteristic considered relevant for the conduct of a court that, in election years, usually operates under strong political pressure.
Upon taking command, Nunes Marques will rely on a robust package of rules already approved by the court for the elections, especially in combating disinformation and the use of artificial intelligence in campaigns. He was the rapporteur of the resolutions with the rules for the election. Behind the scenes, he has defended action aimed at the “depolarization” of the electoral process, a speech that dialogues with the attempt to reduce the degree of institutional conflict observed in the last elections.
In practice, however, the challenge will be to balance this discourse with concrete decisions in more controversial cases, such as requests for impeachment, disputes over electoral propaganda and measures against digital content.
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This Tuesday’s election also marks an unprecedented moment: for the first time, two ministers appointed by Bolsonaro, Nunes Marques as president and André Mendonça as vice president, will be at the head of the TSE during a general election.
The change is seen by political actors as a factor that can influence external perception of the Court, although ministers emphasize that the TSE’s tradition tends to mitigate sudden changes. Privately, members of the court assess that Nunes Marques’ true test will be less legal and more political, when conducting one of the elections that are already considered one of the most polarized in the country since redemocratization.
