Kim Kataguiri has said he will remain in Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies after presidential candidate Renan Santos received 2.24% of valid votes, rather than the 3% threshold Kataguiri had invoked before the election.

The dispute is not over the vote total: both accounts place Santos below 3%, with the left-leaning headline summarising the position as Kataguiri staying because Santos received “2.2%.”¹ The disagreement instead concerns how Kataguiri’s pledge should be understood.

According to the Brazil Right account, Kataguiri said before voting day that he would resign his congressional mandate if Santos finished the presidential race with 3% of valid votes. After the count, Santos placed fourth with more than 2.6 million votes. Kataguiri defended his decision not to step down by saying: “I said I would resign if he got 3%, and he got 2%.”²

That account presents his original wording as open to two readings: it could have referred to the 3% level suggested by polling, or to precisely 3%. Kataguiri has adopted the latter interpretation after the election, arguing that a result below the stated figure did not trigger his commitment.²

The Brazil Left framing is more concise and casts the outcome as a conditional promise that was not met: Santos did not reach 3%, so Kataguiri remains in office.¹ The right-leaning account similarly confirms that Santos fell short, but puts greater emphasis on the ambiguity of the pledge and Kataguiri’s explanation.

Kataguiri was also re-elected as a federal deputy for São Paulo, receiving about 520,000 votes, according to the Brazil Right report.²