Senator Soraya Thronicke has declared support for President Lula da Silva's reelection.
The Senator, who backed Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 and ran against Lula for the presidency in 2022, said the President left her "jaw-dropped."
She said her time on parliamentary inquiry committees (CPIs and CPMIs) shaped the shift.
"I took part in all of them, all of Lula's people attended, none of Bolsonaro's attended. So this is the reason, count on us," she said.
She added that she is "not a hostage to others' validation" and that "if I were a hostage to the opinion of others, I would be a Bolsonaro supporter."
In the betting sector, Thronicke is best known as the author of the request that created the Senate's CPI das Bets. Her request, backed by 30 other senators, was read on the Senate floor on October 8, 2024, and the inquiry was installed on November 12 with Thronicke as the main name and Senator Dr. Hiran as chair.
It was set up to examine the growing influence of online betting on household budgets, possible links to organized crime and money laundering and the use of digital influencers to promote operators.
Over 21 meetings, the CPI heard 19 people, including Federal Government representatives, influencers and betting company owners, though its final stretch was marked by low attendance.
The report had asked for the indictment of 16 people, including influencers Virginia Fonseca and Deolane Bezerra, and proposed 20 measures against the harms of online betting.
Events since have touched on both names, showing that Thronicke had a point. Fonseca even said she will stop promoting betting platforms.
Thronicke said she would still send the report and supporting evidence to the Federal Police, the Prosecutor General's Office and the Finance Ministry. "Brazil has become a digital wild west of betting," she said at the time.
Recently, Senator Cleitinho Azevedo publicly admitted he was wrong to ask Fonseca for a photo during the CPI, calling himself "an idiot" for the moment.
On June 12, 2025, members rejected Thronicke's final report by four votes to three, the first time in a decade that a Senate CPI report was voted down
