Brazilian redemocratization is marked by contradictions. If the country and the Congress that reflects it are realms of low-brow conservatism, federal power has spent 20 years in the hands of those more to the left, if only nominally.
The boredom that emerged in the streets in 2013 and its shift to the right in 2016 gave birth to Bolsonarism, which took advantage of the implosion of the political system via corruption and Lava Jato to propose a new paradigm – farcical and putschistic, as it turned out.
If at the beginning only soldiers nostalgic for the dictatorship embarked on the project, it would quickly delight the financial and business sectors and, above all, would gain ground among the population. Broken, the traditional system and the left have seen the rise of the now prisoner Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
The rest is history, and it is remarkable that the then-president declared he was determined to destroy the system, only to embrace it when its tumult became an existential risk in 2021. That year, the centão took power and today’s semi-presidentialism was launched in the form of a sea of amendments.
Voted out of power, ineligible, condemned and imprisoned without any visible horizon of freedom, Bolsonaro now demands the final price for the choice that the right, in the main, made in embracing him. He wishes to remain at the symbolic helm of the ship.
The launch of the candidacy of his son Flávio, who before Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicanos-SP) was considered in Brasilia as a Bolsonaro who proverbially knew how to use cutlery, may or may not be a farce, but his objective has already been achieved.
Senator PL-RJ forces Tarcísio and the center to make impossible choices, a political strait of Messina in which the monsters Scylla and Charybdis threaten both sides of the ships.
If they support Flávio, which careful observers see as inevitable at first, the São Paulo governor and others will get the radioactivity of the Bolsonaro family name.
The rejection of those who carry it in the current Datafolha is clear: the four candidates, including the former president, are at a level that only Lula (PT) reaches. After his father, Flávio is the worst placed, with 38% of voters who would never vote for him.
The study offers a rational argument for a break: the Bolsonaros would fare much worse in the inevitable runoff against the PT if the elections were held today.
The competitive right-wing governors, Tarcísio and Ratinho Jr. (PSD-PR), are much closer to the president and attract little rejection, a golden combination in the hands of a good marketer.
In Greek mythology, Odysseus chose to side with Scylla, who would eat a few sailors but spare the ship. If the right follows this path, they will become traitors and could lose the 20% of the electorate that Datafolha identifies as loyal to Bolsonarism, which would go to someone from the clan.
Thus, given the distance from the election, tactical retreats aimed at weaning Bolsonarism by 2030 and spraying names are tempting options, and peremptory declarations will now only serve to buy time.