By Lisandra Paraguassu and Luciana Magalhaes
BRASILIA, Dec 5 (Reuters) – Senator Flavio Bolsonaro said on Friday that his father, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, has backed him for a presidential run next year, jilting markets that had bet on a more seasoned candidate consolidating support on the right.
The senator wrote on social media that his father had chosen him for “the mission of carrying on our project for the nation.”
The head of Bolsonaro’s right-wing Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, confirmed in a statement that the ex-president, who is serving time for a failed coup plot, had tapped his eldest son as the party’s presidential candidate.
The news rattled Brazilian markets on Friday, with the country’s currency slipping as much as 3% against the U.S. dollar and the benchmark stock index Bovespa down around 4%.
DIVISIONS ON THE RIGHT
Some investors had bet on Bolsonaro backing a more market-friendly name with executive experience, such as Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, his former minister, to challenge leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva next year.
The former president’s decision, if confirmed, could “implode” ties between the right-wing movement he forged and more centrist political parties, said Andre Perfeito, an economist at Garantia Capital.
“The market was betting on Tarcisio to build those alliances and pave the way to victory on the right in 2026,” he wrote in a note to clients. “Now we need to evaluate whether Flavio Bolsonaro can reunite that broad political support.”
The ex-president’s endorsement on Friday underscored his eldest son’s standing as the Bolsonaro family’s most established politician in Brasilia.
Flavio Bolsonaro, 44, was elected to the Senate in the 2018 general election in which his father rode a right-wing groundswell of anti-establishment sentiment to the presidency.
The senator served previously as a state lawmaker in Rio de Janeiro and mounted an unsuccessful run for Rio mayor in 2016, drawing 14% of votes in the first round.
‘FULL SUPPORT’
His brother Carlos Bolsonaro, 42, a Rio city councilman for over two decades, played a key role in his father’s digital media strategy but has not ventured a run for higher office.
Younger brother Eduardo Bolsonaro, 41, a federal lawmaker, is on trial for courting interference from Washington in his father’s Supreme Court case after moving to the United States.
“Flavio unites the base, has good political dialogue and has my full support. He has all the qualities for this presidential race,” the Brazilian congressman told Reuters.
Michelle Bolsonaro, 43, the ex-president’s third wife, has so far tamped down speculation that she could make her first run for public office next year.
The former president has been barred from running for office since June 2023, when Brazil’s federal electoral court condemned his conduct during the 2022 election.
In September, he was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 presidential election to Lula.
CNN Brasil first reported, citing unnamed sources, that the right-wing leader offered his support to his eldest son during a visit to the federal police offices in Brasilia where he is serving his sentence.
(Reporting by Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia and Luciana Magalhaes in Sao Paulo; Additional reporting by Fernando Cardoso, Fabricio de Castro and Andre Romani in Sao Paulo; Editing by Brad Haynes, Diane Craft and Daniel Wallis)
Comments