Brazil’s Amazonas Picks New Governor in First-Ever Indirect State Election

The Amazonas indirect election on Monday installed Roberto Cidade as the new governor of Brazil’s second-largest northern state, the first time the state has filled a gubernatorial vacancy through legislative vote.

The Assembleia Legislativa do Amazonas chose Roberto Cidade Vieira de Souza, 39, of União Brasil, with 13 of 24 votes required for absolute majority. Five tickets had registered, but four were rejected by procedural challenges, leaving the contest between Cidade and Serafim Corrêa effectively unopposed by the time votes were cast in plenary. The vice-governor-elect is Serafim Corrêa, a longtime PSB state deputy and former mayor of Manaus.

The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, reports that the vote concluded a sequence triggered when governor Wilson Lima and vice-governor Tadeu de Souza resigned an hour before the legal deadline on April 5 to make themselves eligible for new offices. Lima had initially said he would not step down but reversed course to run for Senate, while Tadeu de Souza will run for a Chamber of Deputies seat.

The Amazonas state constitution requires the legislature to fill both vacancies through indirect election when both posts open in the final two years of a term.

Why the Amazonas Indirect Election Was Necessary

Brazilian electoral law requires officeholders seeking different elected positions to step down at least six months before the next election. The October 2026 federal vote forced executive officeholders to resign by April 5 to be eligible. Lima and Tadeu de Souza both timed their exits to that deadline.

With both top executive seats vacant in the final third of the term, the constitutional fallback in Amazonas is an Aleam vote rather than a special direct election. The same mechanism does not apply in most other Brazilian states, making this case unusual within the federation. Roberto Cidade, who had been serving as acting governor since April 5 in his role as Aleam president, was the favored candidate from the outset.

Cidade’s Profile and Political Network

Cidade is a Manaus native who started his political career as a city council suplente in 2016. He won 33,239 votes for state deputy in 2018 and was reelected in 2022 with 105,510 votes, the largest tally ever recorded for a state deputy in Amazonas. He ran for mayor of Manaus in 2024 and finished fourth with 187,566 votes.

He has presided over the Aleam since December 2020 and was reelected to that role unanimously in 2023, an arrangement that the STF justice Cristiano Zanin briefly suspended in October 2024 before validating after the assembly amended internal rules. Cidade joined União Brasil in 2022 and assumed leadership of the party caucus in the Aleam.

What This Means for the 2026 Election

Amazonas is the second-largest electoral college in Brazil’s North region, with about 2.7 million voters. The presidential race in the state is shaping up as a contest between senator Omar Aziz, the candidate aligned with president Lula, and federal deputy Maria do Carmo, who will lead the palanque for senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Roberto Cidade and former mayor David Almeida are positioning themselves as equidistant from the national contest, a stance that gives the new governor flexibility but also limits his role as a political amplifier for either side.

For broader context on the 2026 race, see our analysis of the Supreme Court and Congress conflict, our prior coverage of Brazilian institutional dynamics, and our running election file. The Cidade-Corrêa inauguration date has not yet been announced; the new governor will preside over the state administration through January 2027 when the next directly elected governor takes office.