He is the president of the local branch, in the state of São Paulo, of the right-wing Progressive Party of Brazil (PP), heir to the old National Renewal Alliance (ARENA).

At the time a self-acknowledged playboy with a taste for fast-racing sportscars,[3] Maluf entered professional politics thanks to his family's friendship with the then military president Artur da Costa e Silva, with whom he shared a common interest in Horse racing bets.

This expressway is seen as responsible for the degradation of a great area of São Paulo's downtown by placing a high-traffic elevated road in the middle of a residential area and is considered as the hallmark of the military dictatorship's – and Maluf's – authoritarian, road enhancement[5] and private-car-friendly urban policies in São Paulo – its building being made possible only by the impossibility of a public reaction to it on the surrounding community's side.

He would then dispute a convention of the dictatorship's ruling party, ARENA – which was supposed to be a rubber-stamping caucus aimed at choosing as official "candidate" to the state government the former governor Laudo Natel.

He also spent wildly in public works, including in some schemes of doubtful validity, such as in an eventually failed plan to move the state's capital city.

That caused his PDS party (as the current PP was known at the time) to splinter into the PFL, a move that made good the mutual alienation between the ruling military scheme and its civilian base,[11] something which resulted in the election of opposition candidate Tancredo Neves.

Such high rates of local approval stand as a reflection of the fact that Maluf was able to forge himself a successful career in post-dictatorship Brazil, despite his perennial reputation for shady deals and for an unsavory personality[13] pointing directly to his former connections to the authoritarian régime.

That called eventually for judicial scrutiny of Maluf's policies, especially his public works, his relentless extension of "the city's [São Paulo's] unmitigating concrete sprawl".

Maluf was also part of an extensive investigation, by a Parliamentary Inquiry Committee set up in 2003, regarding money laundering involving bank accounts held by him and his family in Jersey (one of the Channel Islands).

[21] His 2010 bid for reelection was fraught with legal doubts, as a recent federal statute (Complementary Law 135/2010, commonly known as Lei Ficha Limpa or "Clean Record Act") allowed electoral courts to refuse to register the candidacies of people already found guilty by a higher, collegiate court (possibility of further appeals notwithstanding); however, as the Brazilian STF decided in March 2011 that the "Clean Record Act" did not apply to the 2010 elections, according to the principle of anteriority (no offence being punished when defined by a non-previously existing law, and a Brazilian electoral law must be in force at least a year before the election is held),[22] all charges against Maluf's registration and subsequent office-taking were eventually dropped.

[23] Pending a recourse to the STF, Maluf was allowed to campaign and to receive ballots cast for him on October 5, 2014, but such votes are legally regarded as null until - and if - his candidacy is declared as lawful.

[26] Also refused by the same judge was the Malufs' bid for having lifted their March 2010 inclusion in the Red notice of Interpol,[27] which makes them subject to arrest and extradition in 181 countries.