Fátima Bezerra (PT), 71, emerged victorious in the elections even though she did not run as a candidate. The governor of Rio Grande do Norte helped to elect her successor Cadu Xavier (PT), who had finished the first round in second place, and also the Senate candidate Samanda Alves (PT), who appeared in fourth place in polls throughout the year.
And Fátima's deputy, who broke with the government, was unable to be elected state deputy. “Happiest Monday of my life,” declared the governor on social media, one day after the results of the second round.
As the Panel column showed, the head of the state Executive is tipped to assume a ministry in the social area in the Lula 4 government.
"At no point did President Lula address this issue with me," she says, who met with the PT member last week in Brasília. "My life has always been guided by projects of collective interest. I am not moved by vanity in any way. If this invitation is made, of course I will analyze it with great care."
The decision not to run for the Senate and remain in the position of governor was bitter. She had announced, in 2025, that she would resign from the government in April to contest the election.
In January, however, vice-governor Walter Alves (MDB) declared that he would not take up the post because he identified what he classified as a "fiscal bomb" in the state. He also stated that he would support the candidacy for government of the then mayor of Mossoró, Allyson Bezerra (União), Cadu's opponent.
If Fátima Bezerra resigned from her position, it would be up to the Legislative Assembly to hold an indirect election for the buffer mandate. The government base, however, was a minority in the House.
When he was in Natal, in August, in the first act of campaigning after launching his candidacy for re-election, Lula praised Fátima's decision to remain in the government. "You have grown in my opinion because a person like you doesn't need a mandate to be important."
The choice of Cadu Xavier to run for government was initially seen with disbelief. In addition to being the first electoral contest for the then Secretary of Finance, Rio Grande do Norte is experiencing a fiscal imbalance, with a budget deficit forecast for 2027 and personnel expenses above the limit of the LRF (Fiscal Responsibility Law).
"We recognize that the state faces many difficulties from a fiscal and financial point of view, but it is not broken", says Samanda Alves, an elected senator who was Fátima's advisor for 20 years. Councilor of Natal, she was another bet for the governor: she was running for the Senate for the first time and had been defeated in her attempt to reach the Chamber of Deputies in 2022.
One of the candidates' strategies was to incorporate the name of the PT leader into their electoral identification: they became known as Cadu de Lula and Samanda de Lula at the polls.
Born in Nova Palmeira (PB), daughter of a farmer and a midwife, Fátima Bezerra is a teacher and pedagogue. He says he has a trajectory that began similar to Lula's. "We are drought survivors. I know drought firsthand, not from history books."
His political activity began when he was a student at UFRN (Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte). She joined the PT in 1981 and was elected state deputy (for two terms), federal deputy (three times) and senator in 2014. Four years later, in 2018, she was the only woman elected governor in the country in that election.
Already in 2026, three governors were elected, in Acre, the Federal District and Pernambuco, but none who positioned themselves as left-wing. "Raquel [Lyra, re-elected in PE] is a great manager", says Fátima.
The governor says she considers the demand for Lula to nominate a black woman to the STF (Supreme Federal Court) to be healthy. "I think it's important, especially because the president will have opportunities to nominate more ministers."
On the other hand, he classifies as exaggerated the pressure for him to present a fiscal adjustment plan. "I exaggerate this. The market bet all its chips on the defeat of the project led by President Lula. It had already priced in our defeat", he states.
"The president has a lot of wisdom and sensitivity to mediate these issues of fiscal responsibility, but without forgetting responsibility from a social point of view. We still need to make a lot of progress in terms of combating social inequalities in the country", he adds.
Fátima says she has no sympathy for reducing the age of criminal responsibility, even along the lines of the proposal defended by a wing of the PT, which foresees the change in the case of heinous crimes. "What we need, first and foremost, is to guarantee opportunities for our youth. More education and professional qualifications."
Regarding her tenure as governor, she points out as achievements the recovery of roads, the regularization of civil servants' payroll, the advance in the Ideb (Basic Education Development Index) in secondary education in the state network and the reduction in crime.
The Brazilian Public Security Forum recorded that Rio Grande do Norte had the highest growth rate of intentional violent deaths in the country in 2025, with an increase of 19.5% compared to 2024. Despite this, the indicator remained below that recorded from 2013 to 2023 in the state.
With no definition of its political future, Fátima believes that the party leaves the electoral process with many lessons to learn for the coming years. "The PT needs to renew and innovate. And look at the Northeast with recognition of the political representation that the region needs to have, in terms of destinations, decisions and government structures."
