Ricardo Salles, a candidate for the Brazilian Senate from São Paulo, submitted additional court certificates to electoral authorities on Tuesday after the Electoral Prosecutor’s Office challenged his candidacy registration.
The documents concern a pending lawsuit in which Salles is a defendant. According to single-source reporting by Folha de S.Paulo, the Electoral Prosecutor’s Office requested that the registration be rejected because documents about ongoing legal proceedings had not been fully provided.
The Lawsuit At Issue
The case involves alleged health-regulation violations during a motorcycle rally held in 2021. Jair Bolsonaro, who was Brazil’s president at the time, took part in the event. The lawsuit was filed over the conduct surrounding the rally and remains unresolved.
Salles’ lawyers said the new certificates clarify the case’s procedural status. The lawsuit was initially handled by the Federal Court but later moved to the State Court, according to the defense. That change was not expressly recorded in the certificates previously submitted to electoral authorities.
The defense presented the updated documents to address what it described as a documentation issue. The certificates state that the lawsuit remains in the evidentiary phase, meaning the court is still gathering and examining information before reaching a decision.
Defense Position
Salles’ lawyers argue that the lawsuit’s current status does not legally prevent the candidate from registering for the Senate election. The defense did not claim that the lawsuit had been dismissed; it argued that the ongoing proceedings, as documented, do not create an obstacle to the registration.
The filing now gives electoral authorities a more complete record of the case’s court jurisdiction and procedural stage. The source does not report a final decision by the electoral court on the request to bar Salles’ candidacy.
The dispute illustrates how pending lawsuits can enter Brazil’s electoral-registration process through required documentation. In this case, the immediate issue reported by Folha was whether Salles had properly disclosed an ongoing proceeding, rather than whether the lawsuit itself had already produced a final judgment.