Rafael Fonteles is re-elected governor of Piauí with 55.15% of valid votes

Second place, Joel Rodrigues (PP) had 28.20%. Until the last update of this report, 1,678,510 valid votes had been tallied. There were also 64,650 blank votes and 113,963 invalid votes.

Rafael Tajra Fonteles, from the Workers' Party (PT), was elected to office for the first time in the first round of the 2022 elections, with 57.62% of the valid votes, and took office in January 2023.

He is 41 years old and joined the PT at 16. He has a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI). He began his career as a teacher and became a master in mathematical economics at the National Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (Impa), located in Rio de Janeiro.

In 2015, he took over the Piauí Finance Secretariat, during the government of Wellington Dias (PT). He left office in 2022, to run for State Government.

During his period as head of the Finance Secretariat, Fonteles coordinated the Pro Piauí program, aimed at investments and development in the state. He also chaired the National Committee of State and Federal District Finance Secretaries (Comsefaz) between 2019 and 2022.

At the head of the state Executive, Fonteles began to lead political and administrative articulations in the Northeast. In 2025, he assumed the presidency of the Northeast Consortium, an entity that brings together the nine states in the region.

The dispute for the Government of Piauí in 2026 was marked by the confrontation between Rafael Fonteles (PT) and opposition candidates. Throughout the campaign, held in the capital and in the interior of the state, competitors presented proposals and exchanged criticisms about public services and state management investments.

During the campaign, Rafael Fonteles focused his speech on the investments made by the government and the results presented by management.

Opposition candidates, notably Joel Rodrigues (PP) and Lúcia Santos (PSDB), criticized spending on institutional advertising, questioned the effectiveness of telemedicine, demanded solutions for the lack of water and highlighted concerns about state debt.

The Brazilian Federation of Hope, formed in 2022 by the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), the Workers' Party (PT) and the Green Party (PV), contested this year's elections in Piauí in coalition with the Republicans, the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD). The coalition was named A Força do Povo.

In health, he highlighted the carrying out of procedures via telemedicine, reducing the queue for elective surgeries and promised to establish 12 diagnostic centers in the interior.

In security and social assistance, he proposed eliminating the deficit in the prison system, expanding the Maria da Penha Patrol and maintaining the transfer of resources to the 224 municipalities.

He also defended public-private partnerships for works such as Porto Piauí, in Luís Correia, and the maintenance of regional flights in Parnaíba and São Raimundo Nonato.