Former President Jair Bolsonaro’s allies in Santa Catarina continue to bank on the group’s flags to try to repeat in 2026 the electoral victory they achieved regionally in the 2022 elections. But conflicts in the electoral cordons so far suggest that the group could arrive divided in the October conflict.
Two movements have generated fractures in the right-wing camp of Santa Catarina, a state where Bolsonarism has a strong capillarity. One of them was the entry of Carlos Bolsonaro (PL), former councilor of Rio de Janeiro, in the fight for one of the two seats of the Santa Catarina bench in the Senate.
With a place already guaranteed for the son of the former president, the PL will have to exclude one of the two names announced so far for the conflict, the federal deputy Carol de Toni (PL) or the senator Esperidião Amin (PP), and the impasse has generated exchanges of public barbs between supporters.
Carol de Toni’s allies complained of being “ripped off” by the Bolsonaro family, which indicated that it preferred an alliance with Amin’s PP to strengthen the re-election candidacy of the governor, Jorginho Mello (PL). The deputy has not yet decided whether he should migrate to the Novo party and insist on the Senate, or whether he should stay in the PL and seek re-election to the House.
In 2022, Jorginho Mello’s PL ran alone for the Executive, but during his three years in office he expanded his support base and began to design a ticket for 2026 with at least PP and MDB, acronyms that today form the first level of state administration.
Another movement that divided the right of Santa Catarina was the launch of the pre-candidacy for the state government of João Rodrigues (PSD), mayor of Chapecó. Rodrigues runs on the same political spectrum as Jorginho Mello and both are staunch supporters of Bolsonaro.
Allies of the current governor are still trying to convince Rodrigues to abandon the race, in particular by leaving the position of vice-president on the list at the disposal of the PSD.
They are also betting on the alignment of Jorginho Mello with figures from the PSD, such as the current mayor of Florianópolis, Topázio Neto, re-elected last year with the support of the governor. But so far, Rodrigues has shown no signs of backing down.
Convicted in September of attempted coup and imprisoned since November, Bolsonaro remains influential in Santa Catarina politics and flags associated with his name are expected to be repeated during next year’s election campaign.
“I believe that this will stay. It is a group that does not have a well-defined economic agenda, for example, but which has what we call moral and conservative agendas, which are what give them unity,” analyzes Professor Julian Borba, from the Department of Sociology and Political Science at UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina).
Defeated in the 2022 elections, Bolsonaro received his fourth best vote in Santa Catarina in the second round of voting. He received 69.3% of the vote against Lula (PT) — the PT member was elected with 50.9% of the vote nationwide and is expected to run again next year.
In these elections, the PL still won the largest number of seats in the Legislative Assembly (11 out of 40 state deputies) and became the acronym with the most representatives on the Santa Catarina bench in the House – 6 federal deputies out of 16 total seats.
Jorginho Mello’s administration has remained loyal to Bolsonarism so far, including frequent attacks against the federal government and the PT on their social networks.
“This ideological commitment to Bolsonarism is closely linked to the spectacular, to public declarations such as ‘criminals don’t enter here’. From the point of view of actions, of the materiality of this ideological alignment, there is the expansion of civic-military schools and the end of racial quotas in state universities, for example,” Borba says.
He is referring to a bill recently approved by the Legislative Assembly that prohibits the adoption of quotas and positive policies by public higher education institutions in the state or by those that receive resources from the Santa Catarina government.
The proposal comes from a PL parliamentarian, Alex Brasil, and was sent to the Executive for evaluation. Jorginho Mello did not specify whether he would sanction or veto, but he has repeated in interviews that “universities have no color.”
The Union Public Defender’s Office has already published a public note in which it affirms that the measure constitutes an affront to the fundamental principles of the Federal Constitution and “endangers the historic advances in the recognition of the rights of the black, indigenous and quilombola populations.”
In 2023, after the defeat of Planalto by Jair Bolsonaro, Santa Catarina became a sort of bastion of Bolsonarism, not only to preserve the group’s ideas, but also to shelter its allies.
That year, the government of Jorginho Mello appointed former members of the federal government to its administration, such as former President of the National Library Rafael Nogueira, and also accommodated one of former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro’s daughters, Letícia Firmo.
Since then, she has held a position in Brasilia linked to the government of Jorginho Mello, as cabinet assistant at the Executive Secretariat of the National Articulation.
At the town hall of São José, a town neighboring Florianópolis, Silvinei Vasques, who was director general of the PRF (Federal Highway Police) under Bolsonaro, served as secretary of Economic Development and Innovation. He resigned on December 16, after being sentenced to more than 24 years in prison for participation in the 2022 post-election coup.
Son of former President Bolsonaro, Jair Renan also held a position in Santa Catarina. In 2023, then newly elected Senator Jorge Seif (PL) welcomed Jair Renan to his office in Balneário Camboriú.
Jair Renan then ran for municipal councilor and ended up being elected with the highest number of votes to the local Legislature, in the 2024 municipal elections.
Last year, the PL conquered 90 town halls among 295 municipalities in Santa Catarina. It was the state’s best performance among all acronyms. Next come the MDB (70 elected mayors), the PP (53) and the PSD (41).
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