Brazil’s Communist Left Scores Breakthroughs Across Multiple States

Jones Manoel’s election in Pernambuco was not an isolated result. Across Brazil on Sunday, candidates who openly identify with communism or the Marxist left won new and renewed legislative seats, producing several local breakthroughs even as the national congressional map shifted to the right.

In Pernambuco, Jones Manoel won a federal-deputy seat with 249,077 votes, finishing second statewide. Pamphlets reported his victory on election night. Manoel ran with PSOL but has long described his politics in explicitly communist terms, campaigning on reindustrialization, public ownership and a more confrontational break with neoliberal economic policy.

Rio de Janeiro delivered another notable result. Elias Jabbour won 103,219 votes and Jandira Feghali 74,409, giving the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB) two federal deputies from the state for the first time in 32 years, according to the party. At state level, PCdoB’s Dani Balbi was reelected to the Rio legislature with more than 169,000 votes.

Communist gains beyond Rio

In Rio Grande do Sul, public-school teacher Humberto Matos won his first state-deputy mandate with 40,122 votes, returning the PCdoB to the state assembly. The party’s own post-election account quoted Matos telling supporters: “Agora tem um comunista na Assembleia!” — “Now there is a communist in the Assembly.” His campaign combined Marxist political education with proposals on state debt, flood prevention, public finances and industrial policy.

The results stretched beyond those three names. In Bahia, PCdoB elected six legislators — Olívia Santana, Alice Portugal and Daniel Almeida to the federal Chamber, and Bobô, Fabrício Falcão and Zó do Sertão to the state assembly. In Paraíba, Gervásio Maia won reelection to the Chamber while Jô Oliveira entered the state legislature. In Amapá, Marcivânia won a federal seat for the party.

The Rio result also had symbolic weight inside the party. PCdoB’s state organization described the election of Jabbour, Feghali and Balbi as three legislative victories, while Jabbour’s election brings a development economist and longtime communist organizer into the federal Chamber.

Breakthroughs against a national rightward shift

These wins should not be confused with a nationwide left-wing sweep. The Liberal Party emerged with 121 of the 513 seats in the Chamber, while the PT-PCdoB-PV federation won 82. Folha’s tally put the broader left at roughly 24% of the lower house. The PCdoB itself is projected to hold 11 federal seats — meaning the story is less one of national expansion than of conspicuous breakthroughs in particular states and constituencies.

That contrast is politically important. Brazil’s new Congress will contain a stronger conservative bloc, but it will also include a cluster of representatives whose campaigns were unusually explicit about socialism, communism, labor, public ownership and industrial development. The Jones Manoel result in Pernambuco is the most visible example, but it sits inside a wider map of left-wing candidates who converted ideological organizing and large online audiences into legislative seats.

The result also sharpens the contradiction visible in Pamphlets’ broader election coverage: a national contest marked by a stronger right in Congress alongside pockets of durable and, in some places, newly expanded communist and socialist representation.

Sources: Folha de S.Paulo; UOL/TSE Rio results; PCdoB election reports; Chamber of Deputies. Card photo: PCdoB-RJ, October 4, 2026.