As the last vote on the Lula appeal came in, there was no surprise that the former president of Brazil would have his sentence upheld while the markets celebrated, with São Paulo’s stock exchange at an all-time high. What was surprising is that his punishment increased from nine to twelve years. But what does this mean for the Brazilian left, electorally and beyond?

While the sentencing doesn’t mean Lula will be arrested immediately, given that he still has a string of appeals left, it casts a shadow on his campaign prospects. If all the appeals fail, Lula will become ineligible to run in this year’s presidential race, thanks to Brazil’s Ficha Limpa (Clean Slate) law. This means trouble for the Workers’ Party, which has run a presidential candidate in every race since the post-dictatorship redemocratization process. PT candidates always outpaced other leftist candidates, guaranteeing the party’s electoral hegemony over the Left.

Yet Lula is bigger than the PT, and the party currently lacks another public personality that can propel the party beyond a 20-30 percent range of potential voters. The PT’s second-best scenario involves Lula tailoring and appointing a legitimate successor, as he once did with Dilma Rousseff. Technically, the PT has up to twenty days before Election Day to replace Lula with another candidate, meaning he can participate in the campaign until the very last minute.