The largest voting location in these elections is not in any Brazilian city. The University of Lisbon will receive this Sunday (4) 78,833 voters, registered in 207 sections installed in three buildings – the Rectory and the Law and Humanities faculties. For comparison purposes, the Pontifical Catholic University, the largest voting point in São Paulo, has 17,639 registered voters.
These numbers also make Lisbon the largest electoral college outside the country. It was already like this in 2022, but the distance to second place has increased. In previous elections the difference in relation to Miami, in the United States, was around 5,000 registered. In these elections, Lisbon opened a front of 25 thousand voters to Boston, which now occupies second place. Brazilians who live abroad vote only for the President of the Republic. In total, 134,797 voters registered in Portugal.
The three largest Brazilian consulates by number of population served are, in order, those in New York, Boston and Miami, all in the United States, the country that concentrates the majority of Brazilian immigrants. Lisbon appears in fourth place, but has the largest number of voters. Why does this happen? "My hypothesis is that our community in Portugal remains more connected to Brazil, while those who went to live in the United States sometimes disconnect," says ambassador Alessandro Candeas, 60, Brazilian consul in Lisbon.
At the head of the diplomatic representation, Candeas commands a task force that has one objective: to avoid the chaos that Brazilian voters faced in 2022. There was only one polling place for a potential contingent of 45,273 registered voters. The queues branched out in front of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, and the waiting time to vote reached five hours under the inclement sun. "We learned from what happened and we improved ourselves," says Candeas, who was not yet serving in the consulate in the last election.
Between 2022 and 2026 there was a 74% increase in registered voters in Lisbon. The solution for the next election to take place with "fluidity, security and comfort", the objectives pursued by the Consulate, was to increase the voting locations to three, close to each other.
In addition to the Faculty of Law, the buildings of the Faculty of Arts and the Rectory will be used, all around the central square of the University of Lisbon. Voters will be able to identify their voting location using a QR Code, and there will be a team to answer last-minute questions.
The activism in Portugal of President Lula (PT) and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), candidates who lead voting intention polls, resorts to different mobilization strategies. PT members prefer street demonstrations. Last Sunday (27) PT voters organized a demonstration that filled Rossio Square, an emblematic place that hosts, every year, the celebration of the Carnation Revolution, which on April 25, 1974 overthrew the Portuguese dictatorship.
"It is important that Brazilian politicians look at the demands of the immigrant population", says jurist Pedro Prola, 38, coordinator of the PT nucleus in Lisbon. The party has branches in several European cities: In addition to Lisbon, there are party representations in capitals such as Rome and Madrid.
There is no PL representation in Portugal. In a podcast from the newspaper O Público Brasil, information technology specialist Marcelo Rabello, 61, represented Flávio Bolsonaro's voters in a debate with PT member Prola. "Many of the conservative Brazilians in Portugal returned to Brazil or joined Chega, which has a similar proposal to ours," Rabello told Folha, justifying the lack of street demonstrations by Flávio's voters and alluding to the party that represents the ultra-right in Portugal.
Rabello focuses his support on Flávio in videos recorded for social media. He is also the founder of the Veritas Liberat Institute ("the truth sets free", in Latin), which promotes in-person and online courses with figures linked to Bolsonarism, such as former minister Onyx Lorenzoni, deputy Luiz Phillipe de Orléans and Bragança and economist Adolfo Saschida. "We also made a documentary about Brazilians in exile", says Rabello. According to him, journalist Paulo Figueiredo, YouTuber Allan dos Santos and former BBB member Adriano Castro, known as Didi Redpill, participated in the video.
According to the Portuguese National Statistics Institute, an organization equivalent to the Brazilian IBGE, there are 574,195 Brazilians living in Portugal. The Brazilian Consulate in Lisbon estimates that these figures are undervalued. "From what we see on a daily basis in our consular representations, we work with a number of around 700 thousand to 800 thousand Brazilians living in Portugal", says Candeas. "Adding those with dual citizenship, this statistic could rise to 1 million."
According to the consul, the Brazilian community in Portugal is a reflection of the country's social diversity, being made up of workers in the tourism and construction sectors, independent professionals, retirees, entrepreneurs and businesspeople.
