Folha de S.Paulo Launches Partisan GPS 2026 to Map Brazilian Political Parties

Folha de S.Paulo has launched the Partisan GPS 2026, a data analysis tool that positions 29 Brazilian political parties on a spectrum from left to right based on practical political behavior rather than official declarations. The analysis identifies Novo as the most right wing party and PSTU as the most left wing. The PCO was excluded from the scale due to a lack of sufficient public behavior data, such as elected deputies or campaign donors. The tool utilizes five public indicators: voting records in Congress, the formation of parliamentary fronts, party migrations, electoral coalitions, and campaign donations. Specifically, the study analyzed 1,097 votes, 320 fronts, 11,200 party changes, 15,600 coalitions, and 1.1 million donors. The methodology for the 2026 edition was updated to use academic studies by political scientists to define the boundaries between the left, center, and right. The analysis notes that the Brazilian party system is among the most fragmented in the world, which often creates a gap between a party's official stance and the actual decisions made by its representatives. In the specific metric of Chamber of Deputies votes from January 2023 to July 2026, the PT was identified as the most left wing party, while deputies Julia Zanatta and Gustavo Gayer of the PL were among the most right wing. The GPS explicitly avoids using terms like extreme right or extreme left, as it measures proximity between parties rather than the methods they employ.