The day after the final arrest of Jair Bolsonaro, Council member Carlos Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) publicly criticized allies who had begun discussing possible names for the 2026 presidential contest.
In his post on social media, he described this step as “political nonsense,” and said that dealing with the caliphate now was tantamount to “succumbing to the cowardice” that, he said, was being committed against his father.
“To discuss presidential succession while the greatest political absurdities are being piled up against the country’s greatest leader, and while national heroes are being illegally detained, is to condone the cowardice and torture that this regime imposes on thousands of innocent Brazilians,” he wrote.
Carlos also stated that accepting this discussion would make Brazil the “official mirror” of North Korea.
The demonstration takes place at a time of internal dispute over leadership in Bolsonarianism. With Bolsonaro isolated in the federal police watchdog, receiving only medical, legal and family visits, part of the opposition has begun to consider alternatives for 2026 – a move that has angered the family core, which is trying to maintain political control over the space left by the former president.
Along with Michel and Flavio Bolsonaro, Carlos worked to unify the opposition’s rhetoric on pardoning those convicted on January 8. Wednesday’s speech reveals an attempt to stop any internal reorganization that would remove the Bolsonian camp’s control from the family and reinforce the narrative that the electoral agenda must be postponed.
At a League Council meeting last Monday, Michel asked her allies not to talk about the elections at the present time. The movements of the right-wing referees – Tarcisio de Freitas, Ronaldo Caedo, Ratinho Junior and Romeo Zema – have caused friction with the family since the beginning of the year.