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Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro trade challenges over bank secrecy disclosure

President Lula proposed to the electoral court that he open his financial, tax and phone records if his runoff rival senator Flávio Bolsonaro did the same, triggering a series of counter-proposals between the campaigns.

21 October 2026Tagblick Newsdesk

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Archive photo: Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro trade challenges over bank secrecy disclosure — Archive photoPhoto: Governo do Estado de São Paulo · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0

At a campaign event in Porto Alegre on Monday, October 19, Lula announced he would file a request with the Superior Electoral Court to open his bank records and challenged Flávio Bolsonaro to do the same. The following Tuesday, the president formally submitted the proposal to the court, expanding it to include tax and phone records as well as data from individuals and companies linked to him.

Flávio Bolsonaro's campaign initially indicated it intended to ignore the challenge. Vice-president Geraldo Alckmin commented that the senator was "making an excuse" by not responding immediately to the provocation. On Wednesday, October 21, Flávio Bolsonaro responded at an event in Guarulhos, São Paulo, saying he would agree to open his bank and phone records on one condition: that Lula also open the records of his former adviser Marco Aurélio Santana Ribeiro, known as Marcola, as well as those of the Lula Institute and the Planalto corporate credit card. Bolsonaro's campaign formalized this condition with the court.

Also on Wednesday, coordinators of Lula's campaign said they did not oppose the conditions set by Flávio Bolsonaro. Former minister Camilo Santana, the campaign spokesman, declared that the president objected to none of the demands, including disclosure of Marcola's data, describing the conditions as a "maneuver".

After this statement of acceptance, Lula renewed his challenge to Bolsonaro during an event in Belo Horizonte the same Wednesday. The president said the senator had "chickened out" by imposing conditions, and stated that Bolsonaro "has no good cards, only lies". According to Lula, he intended to respond with his own strategy the following day.

Vice-president Alckmin later assessed that Flávio Bolsonaro had made 19 demands and did not actually wish to make his records public. Alckmin argued that presidents and vice-presidents should have no tax, bank or phone secrecy, stating that "public life is public, it has to be transparent".

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