Members of the Lula (PT) government believe that the candidacy of Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) for the presidential election will facilitate an attack against the central parties, whether this candidacy is valid or not.
Although divided over the real intentions of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in throwing out his son’s name, Lula’s allies see an opportunity to flirt with parties that are currently in government but have threatened to unite around the name of São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans).
As the Panel column shows, Leafmembers of the centrao believe that Bolsonaro’s bet on Flávio aims for the political survival of the family and could lead to the isolation of the pre-candidate.
In this calculation, the dispersion of the right would make it possible to reach agreements at least on the neutrality of the center parties, as was the case with the PSD in 2022.
Lula’s ministers are working with two hypotheses regarding Bolsonaro’s decision. One wing of the government believes that the former president would only seek to retain his political power until next year to negotiate under better conditions his support for another candidate. In this case, Flávio would also benefit by keeping his name in the spotlight now in preparation for the campaign to try to be re-elected to the Senate.
In Lula’s team there are also those who believe in the veracity of Flávio’s candidacy as a way to keep all the political capital of the Bolsonaros in the family, even at the risk of Lula’s defeat in the elections. The strategy would be to avoid the dilution of this wealth among centrist candidates.
A sector of Lulistas who bet on Flávio’s candidacy in 2026 believes that she is in fact targeting 2030. This reasoning is based on the hypothesis that the opponent who will accompany Lula in the second round, if the PT member is re-elected, will lead the opposition in the following four years and will be a consolidated name for the following elections.
These Lula collaborators agree on one point: Bolsonaro’s name returned to the center of the electoral debate at a time when Tarcísio monopolized attention on the right.
The allies of the President of the Republic recall that, in his conversations, he repeats that he does not choose his opponents. But the new thing will require a change in your communication.
Today centered on the criticism of Tarcísio’s management and the presentation of the governor of São Paulo as a candidate of the system, the strategy will emphasize the comparison with the Bolsonaro government.
The tone of not choosing an opponent does not prevent the president’s allies from speaking out. The Minister of the General Secretariat, Guilherme Boulos, for example, provoked Flávio on X, formerly Twitter. “Lula defeated Bolsonaro in 2022. Now we will defeat his son in 2026. Don’t faint in the debate, Flávio Bolsonaro!” declared the minister, referring to the debate of the 2016 campaign.
The PT, Lula’s party, is reluctant to organize for an electoral campaign with Flávio as an opponent, because the party leadership is not sure that he will actually run for president.
The leaders of the PT believe that the Bolsonarist political group is constantly evolving. The most prudent thing for them would be to wait until the demands are better defined, between the middle and the end of the first half of next year, and then decide what to do.
If the scenario with Flávio consolidates, Lula’s supporters see a greater possibility of obtaining support from other parties for the president’s candidacy for re-election, since the senator would carry the high level of rejection of Bolsonaro from the start of the campaign.
PT members also note that candidates for governor, senator and deputy allied with Lula would gain strength in the northeast and Pará, in addition to northern Minas Gerais, with a Flávio candidacy. These are regions where Bolsonaro lost the 2022 runoff and which tend to reject the former president’s political group.