Flavio Bolsonaro confirms that his father picked chrysanthemum leaves. The 44-year-old senator confirmed on Friday that he has been chosen as the family clan’s candidate in the presidential elections of 2026. “Brazil’s greatest political and moral leader, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, has just entrusted me with the task of providing continuity to our national project,” says the message that has spread on social networks. The former president has just begun serving a 27-year prison sentence for attacking democracy. With this announcement, the stock market fell by 4% because it removes the possibility of a less ideological candidate competing with the incumbent president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who will run for re-election.
Flavio is the eldest of Bolsonaro’s five children. He is considered the most moderate among the brothers, and he is the one who maintains the most flexible relations with the more centrist parties, which constitute the real balance in the elections in Brazil. Suspicions of corruption have clouded the political career of Bolsonaro’s eldest son, who was investigated but not charged. Apparently, his father recommended that he begin touring Brazil, forming regional alliances and engaging in controversial hand-to-hand combat with President Lula.
This announcement comes a few days after a public quarrel took place between the three eldest sons against the patriarch’s wife, Michel (43 years old), who heads the women’s section of the Liberal Party, in which they are all active, and appear in prominent positions in some opinion polls. The fight, prompted by a regional alliance, revealed enormous tensions within the family itself over the inheritance of the brand and the power of influence.
Senator Bolsonaro visited his father on Tuesday at the Federal Police Control Headquarters in Brasilia. As he left, he said he had apologized to the former first lady and that the dispute had been resolved. He did not mention anything about the captain, as his descendants called him, after he anointed him heir.
Before the matter was announced, Flavio Bolsonaro traveled to São Paulo to inform Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, according to the newspaper. state. De Freitas is a favorite of economic elites. He trained as an engineer in the armed forces, then returned to civilian life. He had a career in public administration before meeting Bolsonaro, who was his minister and whom he considers the architect of his political career.
Prison now, before house arrest, has weakened the political profile of the patriarch, who has also remained silent since August, when a judge also cut off his access to social media. In any case, the elder Bolsonaro retains his influence, although Bolsonaro’s maneuvers to get Congress to approve a pardon or commute his sentence, along with other coup plotters, have not succeeded. But the governors who aspire to succeed him at the helm of the right promised to pardon him if they came to power.
Anonymous Liberal Party sources told the press that Flavio’s launch was now a probe balloon and not a final decision. Sources close to Michele Bolsonaro, also anonymous, say that she was not consulted and that she would be surprised if her husband did not inform her of a decision of this importance. Mrs. Bolsonaro visited the former president on Thursday, two days after her stepson.
Lindbergh Farias, parliamentary leader of the Labor Party, announced that putting forward Flavio’s name as a presidential candidate was an expected move:
In the House of Representatives: “They know that it is practically impossible to defeat Lula, but they want to maintain leadership in the opposition for the future.” Ten months before the presidential elections, the incumbent president will defeat any candidate from the right.