(Gilmar) The story behind this trend in Social Media today
02-10-2026
Gilmar Mendes, the senior justice of Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF), is trending because of a last-minute court order he issued on October 1, 2026, forcing TV Globo to include presidential candidate Renan Santos in that night’s debate.The debate was the final major televised encounter before the first round of the 2026 presidential election. Globo had invited President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), Ronaldo Caiado (PSD), Augusto Cury (Avante), and Romeu Zema (Novo). Lula announced he would skip it and appear on a podcast instead, opening a slot. The network’s own rules said that, if a candidate withdrew, it could inviteat its sole discretionthe next-best-placed candidate in a specific Quaest poll. Renan Santos, of the Missão party, was polling around 3 percent and met that numerical threshold, but Globo did not invite him.Santos and allied parties had already asked the electoral court and the Supreme Court to force his inclusion. The president of the Superior Electoral Court, Kassio Nunes Marques, denied the request, reading the Globo rule as permissive rather than mandatory. Justice Cármen Lúcia of the STF also rejected a related petition, holding that the legal vehicle used was improper.Hours before airtime, Gilmar Mendes reversed that outcome. He ruled that once the objective criterion in Globo’s own regulations was met, exclusion could not rest on the broadcaster’s discretion alone. He ordered Renan to be given the same speaking time, questions, and positioning as the other participants, citing freedom of expression, political pluralism, and what he called a legitimate expectation created by earlier Globo interviews and sabatinas with the candidate. The decision also noted that the 2026 race had so far produced fewer first-round debates than any presidential contest since 1998.The ruling immediately split reaction. Supporters treated it as a defense of minor-candidate access against a major network. Critics called it monocratic judicial interference in an electoral event, noted that it overrode both the electoral court and another STF justice, and linked it to broader complaints about Gilmar’s public role. Those complaints sit against the ongoing Banco Master investigations, in which messages and contracts have drawn scrutiny toward figures connected to the court; Gilmar has used the scandal to call for wider reforms of the judiciary and financial regulators while critics accuse him of selective timing and institutional overreach. Separate posts also recirculated his recent public embrace of STF president Edson Fachin.By late evening the name “Gilmar” was among the top worldwide and Brazilian trends, driven almost entirely by the debate order and the political arguments it triggered.