(Renan) The story behind this trend in Social Media today
02-10-2026
The trend today centers on Renan Santos, the presidential candidate of the small party Missão (tied to the Movimento Brasil Livre), and the last major TV debate before Brazil’s first-round vote on Sunday.TV Globo scheduled its presidential debate for tonight. Its invitation rule followed the electoral law’s threshold for mandatory inclusion: parties or federations with at least five members of Congress. Missão has only one federal deputy, Kim Kataguiri, so Renan was left off the initial list. Confirmed guests included Flávio Bolsonaro, Ronaldo Caiado, Romeu Zema, and Augusto Cury. President Lula, also invited, had already said he would skip the debate and appear on a podcast at the same time.Renan’s campaign asked the electoral court to force his inclusion. The president of the Superior Electoral Court, Kassio Nunes Marques, rejected the request, holding that Globo’s criteria did not require inviting him. The party then filed a constitutional complaint at the Supreme Court. Minister Cármen Lúcia refused to hear it, ruling that the filing was the wrong legal tool for a candidate’s individual grievance and that the matter belonged to the electoral courts, not the Supreme Court.In a live stream, Renan reacted by calling the country “cursed,” describing the exclusion as a rigged arrangement that benefited Flávio Bolsonaro with Globo’s participation, and summoning supporters to protest outside the network’s headquarters in Rio. He also released an open letter attacking Flávio as an heir who was avoiding a confrontation.Hours later the picture reversed. Supreme Court minister Gilmar Mendes, acting on a request from another party, ordered Globo to include Renan, treating the final pre-election debate as a setting in which voters should be able to compare the alternatives directly. The order overrode the earlier refusals.Flávio Bolsonaro then announced he would not attend, saying he was withdrawing because of what he called censorship imposed on the event by the electoral court. Social media filled with arguments over whether the courts had unfairly kept a low-polling outsider off the stage, whether Gilmar’s late intervention was improper, and whether Flávio had pulled out to avoid Renan once inclusion was forced. The debate itself was still set for 9:30 p.m., now with Renan ordered in and both Lula and Flávio absent.