Lula Files Cassation Petition as Final Debate Sharpens Runoff Fight

Overview

• In the last TV Globo debate on Friday, Oct. 23, Lula and Flávio traded sharp personal attacks and policy clashes, with exchanges over the Manaus Covid oxygen crisis and mutual accusations that aimed to sway undecided voters.
• On Friday the Lula campaign lodged a cassation petition at the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral alleging irregular financing tied to the film Dark Horse and naming banker Daniel Vorcaro, citing a reported $24 million negotiation and PF reports of seven transfers totaling $12.3 million to a U.S. Havengate fund.
• The petition asks the TSE to order urgent measures such as sharing Polícia Federal and prosecutors’ evidence, lifting bank and fiscal secrecy (quebra de sigilo) and tracing international transfers before Sunday’s vote.
• TSE ministers have warned of an overload of election litigation, with Minister Estela Aranha saying her office dispatches some 40–50 cases a day, a workload that could produce procedural bottlenecks if high-profile petitions require rapid rulings.
• Both campaigns concentrated last-day street mobilization on Saturday in Southeast swing states—Lula in Rio and São Paulo and Flávio starting in Minas Gerais then Rio—while allies signaled social-media disclosures that could affect turnout, judicial timetables and the post-election bargaining that will follow the Oct. 25 runoff.