Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated Tuesday (Mar. 31) that politics has become a business, adding it is necessary to convince the people that a change in Brazil’s political landscape is possible through the election of good candidates.

Lula held his first cabinet meeting of 2026 today and bid farewell to the ministers who will be leaving their posts to run in the elections this October. At the event, Lula confirmed that Alckmin will run for vice-president again.

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“We have a lot of great politicians today, but the truth is that in many cases, politics has become a business,” he noted. “Political offices come at a high price. Someone told me the other day, ‘A federal representative won’t get elected for less than 50 million reais.’ And if that’s true, we’ve reached the end of any sense of integrity in Brazilian politics,” the president went on to argue.

In Lula’s view, everyone is to blame in this process. In a bid not to “bring anyone into the spotlight,” he said, the necessary changes are not being proposed. “And things just keep getting worse, and today we’ve reached a state of decline, including in some institutions.”

Candidacies

According to the president, of the 37 government ministers, at least 18 will step down to run for elected office in October.

Among them is vice-President Geraldo Alckmin, who also served as Minister of Development, Industry, Trade, and Services.

The president and vice-president do not need to resign from office to run in the upcoming election. If they were running for another office, however, they would need to resign.

Politicians who intend to vie for office have until April 4 to leave their current positions, six months before the first round of the elections, which takes place on October 4.

During the meeting, Lula also emphasized he would not appoint new ministers and that the ministries would be headed by members of the current team, such as the then-executive secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Dario Durigan, who took over after Minister Fernando Haddad stepped down.

“We have confidence in the team you’ve put together,” Lula said. “We have a lot to accomplish by December 31, and it is the duty of those who remain to see it through – to ensure the wheels keep turning without any disruption. We can’t start building a new ministry with only nine months left in our term,” he added.

Federal tax revenue in Brazil hit BRL 222.1 billion in February, the highest ever for the month since the time series began in 1995. This marks a real growth of 5.68 percent compared to February last year.

The data were released Tuesday (Mar. 24) by the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service.

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It is also the strongest revenue performance for the year to date. In the two-month period, it reached BRL 547.9 billion, an increase of 4.41 percent after adjusting for inflation.

According to tax authorities, the performance was mainly driven by growth in social security contribution revenue and recent changes to tax legislation.

Social security

Social security revenue reached BRL 60.5 billion, a real increase of 5.68 percent compared to February last year. The growth resulted from a 3.89 percent rise in the wage bill and a 7.98 percent increase in revenue from Simples Nacional, the special tax regime for micro and small businesses.