Brazil's top electoral court has suspended the Senate candidacy of Deltan Dallagnol, a former lead prosecutor of the Lava Jato corruption investigation, in the southern state of Paraná. The injunction, issued late on Saturday, September 19, by Justice Floriano de Azevedo Marques of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), granted a request from the Paraná Para Todos coalition and the Brasil da Esperança federation, which include the Workers' Party (PT) and the PDT. Until the court's collegiate panel rules on the appeal, Dallagnol, of the Novo party, cannot receive or use public campaign money and cannot campaign.

In practice, he loses access to the Party Fund and the Special Campaign Financing Fund (FEFC), is barred from airing electoral ads on radio and television and cannot hold campaign acts, according to CNN Brasil. The justice found indications that the Regional Electoral Court of Paraná (TRE-PR) went against TSE precedent when it upheld the candidacy on September 9. He wrote that the regional ruling had been issued in defiance of the superior court, with no legal support whatsoever and with disturbing effects on the electoral process (quotes translated from Portuguese).

"An ineligible candidate can change, with the votes devoted to him, the outcome of the election irreversibly, because his voters will have been prevented from making another combination of votes at their discretion"

wrote Floriano in the decision, which was issued on an urgent basis at the request of six lawyers acting for the rival coalition and federation, according to CNN Brasil. The newspaper Estadão reports that the ruling will now be reviewed by a collegiate panel of the TSE.

Timeline

• 2022: Dallagnol resigned as a federal prosecutor 11 months before the election, while facing internal disciplinary proceedings at the Federal Prosecutor's Office, and ran for the Chamber of Deputies. The regional court approved his registration; an appeal went to the TSE, but with no final ruling he ran, was elected and took office.
• 2023: the TSE revoked his candidacy registration. The case's rapporteur, Justice Benedito Gonçalves, held that he had committed fraud against the Clean Record law (Lei da Ficha Limpa), because the resignation was filed early to dodge disciplinary proceedings that could have led to his dismissal and, as a consequence, to ineligibility. The Chamber of Deputies confirmed the loss of his seat months later.
• September 9, 2026: the TRE-PR accepted an appeal filed by Dallagnol's defense by a 4-3 vote and allowed him to register his Senate candidacy.
• September 19, 2026: TSE Justice Floriano de Azevedo Marques suspended the candidacy in a preliminary injunction, at the rival coalition's request, until the collegiate judgment of the appeal.

Both sides and next steps

In Paraná, the candidate's defense had prevailed 4-3 at the regional court. Facing the risk of losing the slot for good, Dallagnol has already discussed an alternative publicly: in a June interview on the podcast A Tia Pod, he said he could field his wife, Fernanda Dallagnol, or Curitiba's vice-mayor, Paulo Martins, to run for the Senate in his place if the registration is denied, according to the news site O Antagonista.

The suspension hits one of the front-runners in the Paraná Senate race, according to a Paraná Pesquisas poll cited by CNN Brasil, two weeks before the first round of Brazil's general elections, scheduled for October 4. The next step is the TSE collegiate panel's judgment of the appeal, which will decide whether Dallagnol can run; no date has been announced. The injunction is provisional and does not settle the merits of the candidacy.