The Brazilian party system presents a paradox. Although the Workers Party (PT) and the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) have controlled presidential elections for the last 20 years, their force at the other levels of electoral competition has not grown. The objective of this study is to undertake a discussion of this situation through the 2014 general elections. After attempting to explain why successive challengers have not been able to change the structure of competition for the Brazilian presidency, I will analyze the relation established between the pattern observed at this level and the other "connected" electoral disputes-both those for state executive and federal legislative office. The general conclusion is that even if the pattern continues, it is quite improbable that this will significantly impact the other levels of national political party competition.Keywords: Presidential elections; competition structure; Brazilian party system. magine a country with little political party tradition, where parties are relatively recent and organizationally fragile; where the majority of the electorate is more accustomed to valuing individual candidates than the available party labels and do not identify with any of them. Now add to this the fact that for the sixth consecutive time, the same two parties dominated the presidential election and one of them won the last four disputes.There is something strange about these two things. It would not be so strange if the parties, in this case the Workers Party (PT) and the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), were also the two largest national parties; however, they (*) http://dx