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SAO PAULO — In a high-stakes political upset that has reshaped Brazil’s political landscape months ahead of October’s presidential election, Brazil’s National Congress voted Thursday to override a presidential veto and enact a controversial sentencing reform bill that will slash former President Jair Bolsonaro’s 27-year prison term for his conviction on coup plotting charges. The legislative move marks a major political blow to incumbent leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro’s long-time rival, and signals a notable erosion of Lula’s governing power in Congress ahead of his reelection bid.

The new legislation, which immediately faces planned legal challenges in Brazil’s Supreme Court, revises sentencing rules for defendants convicted of multiple political crimes. Under the new policy, when a defendant is found guilty of multiple offenses including crimes against democratic rule of law and leading a coup attempt, their final sentence will only reflect the single count carrying the maximum penalty, rather than an aggregate of all convictions. While the exact remaining sentence for Bolsonaro has not yet been finalized, political and legal analysts project the reform could cut as much as 20 years off the former right-wing leader’s original 27-year sentence. Bolsonaro, who was convicted and began his sentence in November 2024, is currently serving time under house arrest.

Conservative opposition lawmakers successfully rallied centrist senators and federal deputies to secure a comfortable majority to override Lula’s veto of the bill, which was originally passed by Congress in 2024. Bolsonaro’s supporters had openly predicted the outcome before voting got underway, and many framed the move as a stepping stone to broader political pardons. “This is a first and much awaited step by those who are afflicted. The next stage is full amnesty,” said Sen. Espiridião Amin, a prominent Bolsonaro ally.

Senate leaders claimed ahead of the vote that the reduced penalties would only apply to cases directly connected to the convictions of Bolsonaro, his allies, and supporters charged in connection with the 2023 coup attempt. But legal experts have already signaled they will challenge this narrow framing in court, noting the legislation’s wording applies broadly to eligible cases.

Pedro Uczai, congressional whip for Lula’s Workers’ Party in the Chamber of Deputies, confirmed the party will file an appeal with the Supreme Court to have the legislation annulled, arguing the reform violates Brazil’s constitution. As of Thursday evening, the court had not yet received the formal complaint.

Bolsonaro’s congressional allies have been open that the bill will benefit not just the former president, but also hundreds of his supporters convicted for their role in the January 8, 2023 riot that destroyed multiple government buildings in Brazil’s capital Brasilia. The attack, which sought to overturn Lula’s 2022 election victory, was widely compared to the 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Alexandre Knopfholz, a lawyer and legal scholar, told the Associated Press the bill’s wording could also reduce penalties for offenses committed by large crowds, extending legal leniency to dozens of rioters already charged in connection with the Brasilia attack. Knopfholz emphasized that even if the Supreme Court upholds the new legislation, Bolsonaro will not be released from detention automatically, and additional legal proceedings will be required to adjust his sentence.

Thursday’s vote marks the second high-profile congressional defeat for Lula in 24 hours, capping a rough week for the incumbent ahead of his campaign for a fourth non-consecutive term. On Wednesday evening, the Senate rejected Lula’s nominee for a Supreme Court seat — the first time a sitting president’s Supreme Court pick has been rejected in 132 years.

“They want to release Bolsonaro, his jailed generals and stop federal police investigations that implicate them,” said Lindberg Farias, a lawmaker and Lula ally, calling Thursday’s vote “a day of infamy.”

The legislative battle has already spilled over into the upcoming presidential campaign. Lula, who narrowly defeated Bolsonaro in 2022 to return to the presidency, will face Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son, as his main challenger in October. During Thursday’s vote, Flávio Bolsonaro laid out his campaign pitch to voters: “If it is God’s will, I will govern this country. I will hug you and take care of you, no matter what your political view is.”

As of Friday morning, Lula had not issued any public comment on the back-to-back congressional defeats. Political analysts say the vote is a clear warning sign for Lula’s reelection prospects, though many note there is still five months until election day, and public attention could shift to other events including the upcoming men’s soccer World Cup.

“This vote is another sign that Bolsonaro is not finished as a political actor, his son will be competitive against Lula,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo.

On Thursday, thousands of Argentine working people gathered in the streets of Buenos Aires for annual May Day demonstrations, turning the traditional celebration of labor rights into a mass show of opposition to President Javier Milei’s sweeping rollback of decades-old worker protections. The march was organized by the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), Argentina’s largest union federation, which framed the action as a fight to preserve “decent employment” in the face of Milei’s transformative changes to the country’s 50-year-old national labor code.

Argentina’s labor regulations, first enshrined in 1974, have long provided Argentine workers with extensive legal protections and benefits. For decades, however, economists and business leaders have argued that these rigid rules created prohibitive operational costs for companies, driving away much-needed foreign direct investment and pushing nearly half of the country’s workforce into the informal, off-the-books sector where workers receive no legal protections or benefits. Successive administrations spanning multiple political ideologies attempted to liberalize the labor market to address these issues, but every reform effort collapsed in the face of fierce pushback from Argentina’s historically powerful labor unions, which have been a core political force in the country since the rise of Peronism in the 1940s.

Despite widespread union opposition that included weeks of rolling protests and a full nationwide strike, Milei, who swept to power on a libertarian free-market agenda, successfully pushed his labor reform package through congress in February, securing one of the most significant legislative wins of his young presidency. The new legislation makes sweeping changes to the country’s labor rules: it expands the maximum legal workday from eight hours to 12, extends the probation period for new hires, simplifies the process for companies to dismiss workers, reduces legal protections for striking workers, and caps judicial discretion for severance pay awards. Proponents argue the changes will encourage formal sector hiring and make Argentina more competitive for global investment, but critics say they erode hard-won labor rights and leave working people vulnerable.

Opponents of the reform have turned to the courts to block the new law, launching a constitutional appeal to challenge its legality. Last week, a court overturned an earlier injunction that had suspended the law’s implementation at the unions’ request, clearing the way for the reforms to take effect. Union leaders have announced they will file a new legal challenge, and the dispute is now on track to reach Argentina’s Supreme Court for a final ruling.

The political clash over labor reform comes at a fragile moment for Milei’s presidency. His flagship policy promise to curb Argentina’s decades-long sky-high inflation has made little progress in recent months, while national unemployment has begun to climb. For Argentina’s labor movement, which was a foundational pillar of the Peronist movement that dominated Argentine politics for nearly 80 years, the labor overhaul represents an existential threat to both worker rights and the movement’s long-held political influence.

Ahead of Thursday’s protest, CGT leader Jorge Sola told local radio that widespread social discontent has built up across the country, driven by more than just falling household consumption. “It is due to family debt, job losses and worse working conditions than what we had before,” Sola said, capturing the simmering anger that brought thousands of workers onto the capital’s streets for the May Day demonstration.