Federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro (PL-SP) defended on Saturday (12/06) the choice of his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), by his brother Flávio, to run for president in 2026. The deputy, self-exiled in the United States, declared that the maneuver is a “checkmate” against those who supported names more aligned with the center-right and outside the family clan.
The choice was anticipated by the Metropolisesin the Paulo Cappeli section, and occurred after Bolsonaro’s preventive arrest for violating the electronic ankle monitor. Flávio’s decision displeased names allied to Bolsonarism, favorable to a more pragmatic choice, such as that of the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans).
For Eduardo, who previously ran as a candidate for the post vacated by his father and is a staunch opponent of right-wing candidacies outside the Bolsonaro family, said the decision is “a big message” to “potential candidates of the system” and “to people who care little about censorship, about amnesty, about political prison.”
“These same people who don’t like Jair Bolsonaro are now attacking Flávio Bolsonaro. Why? Because they hope that Flávio will fall and that one of these people who care little about censorship, about amnesty, about political imprisonment, can make Brazil happy, especially in the part that interests those who are attacking us now,” he said in a message on social media.
The federal deputy said that his older brother “represents exactly everything that Bolsonaro represents” and that “there is no other way” than to elect his brother to the Palácio do Planalto in 2026.
“Any possible change in this electoral council means a victory for all those who, along with the left, think that the future belongs to censorship, to political prison and that all this is a secondary issue,” he said.