PL’s Push to Remove Moraes Runs Into a New Problem: Lula Could Choose His Successor

Brazil’s Liberal Party (PL) will have 29 senators from February, making it the largest party in the chamber at the start of a legislative term since 1988. During the campaign, PL candidates called for the impeachment of Supreme Court justices, with Alexandre de Moraes their main target. But Lula’s re-election has changed the calculation: removing a justice could create another vacancy for the president to fill.

Lula has appointed four of the Supreme Court’s 10 current justices. Before the next election, he could also appoint replacements for Luís Roberto Barroso, whose seat has been vacant since October 2025, Luiz Fux, who is due to retire in 2028, and Cármen Lúcia, whose retirement is expected in 2029. Those appointments would bring the number of justices selected by Lula to six; removing Moraes and filling his seat would raise it to seven.

Impeaching a justice requires 54 votes in the 81-member Senate. The PL would therefore need support from 25 other senators to remove Moraes, while also potentially creating an opportunity for Lula to appoint his successor. Without new developments, the column argues, Moraes has a strong chance of remaining on the court.

The article describes two possible paths for the PL. One would be a deal with the centrist bloc to remove Moraes while making approval of his replacement conditional on an agreed candidate. The Constitution gives the president the power to nominate justices, but senators can reject nominees. The Senate rejected Jorge Messias in April, an outcome the column says had not occurred since the start of the Republic.

That arrangement is considered unlikely while Davi Alcolumbre, described in the column as close to Moraes, leads the Senate. It could become more feasible if Arthur Lira, elected senator for Alagoas, eventually takes over the chamber, the article says.

A second option would be to remove Moraes and block any replacement. The column points to Argentina, where the Supreme Court is meant to have five judges but operates with three. In 2025, President Javier Milei nominated two candidates, both rejected by the Senate; no new nominations have followed. With only three judges, decisions require unanimity, and disagreements can lead to judges from other courts being called in, potentially delaying rulings.

In Brazil, the vacant seat left by Barroso is already an example of a Senate vacancy without a replacement. If senators block further nominations from Lula, the Supreme Court could reach the next presidential election with three empty seats, or four if Moraes is also removed. Gilmar Mendes is due to retire in December 2030, which could leave as many as five vacancies for the next president to fill in an extreme scenario.

With eight justices, the court would be at the minimum quorum required to rule on constitutional matters; with seven, it would fall below that threshold. In either of the PL’s possible strategies, the central Senate dispute may be over who chooses the next justice, rather than Moraes’s conduct. The column recalls that Flávio Bolsonaro said on September 7 that voting for Lula meant voting for Moraes: after the election, the question of who would replace the justice has become a political challenge for the PL.

Sources: Folha Poder.