Bolsonaro son says he has father's backing in 2026 election

Daniel Carvalho and Vinícius Andrade, Bloomberg News on Dec 5, 2025

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Brazilian lawmaker Flavio Bolsonaro said his father, former leader Jair Bolsonaro, has backed him to run in the country’s 2026 presidential election, dashing the hopes of investors who had another candidate in mind to unseat President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“It’s with great responsibility that I confirm the decision of Brazil’s greatest political and moral leader, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, to entrust me with the mission of continuing our national project,” Flavio said in a social media post Friday.

Brazilian assets extended losses after Flavio confirmed the decision, with the real weakening as much as 3.1%. The Ibovespa equity index slipped as much as 4.2%, and some swap-rate contracts surged more than 50 basis points.

The decision sets up a nightmare scenario for Brazilian investors, who have dreaded another matchup between Lula and a member of the Bolsonaro family. They had been hoping the former president, who last month began serving a 27-year prison sentence for plotting a coup after his 2022 defeat, would back Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, viewing him as a market-friendly option that gave the Brazilian right its best chance to beat the leftist incumbent.

“The market expected Tarcisio to be Bolsonaro’s candidate, and the technical position reflected this optimism to some extent,” said Milena Landgraf, a partner at Jubarte Capital in Sao Paulo. “Flavio would be a less competitive candidate against Lula and also worse from the point of view of economic policy expectations, and that would be negative for Brazil assets.”

It also caught both investors and allies off guard, given prior indications that Bolsonaro likely wouldn’t throw his weight behind a potential successor until March.

Freitas didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelle, who had also been considered a potential candidate from within the family, declined to comment.

Flavio on Tuesday visited his father at Federal Police headquarters in Brasilia, where Bolsonaro has been in custody since late November after using a soldering iron to tamper with an ankle monitor he’d been ordered to wear while on house arrest.

Since the encounter, Flavio has been reaching out to allies to tell them that he plans to begin traveling across Brazil to build support ahead of the election, according to two people familiar with the situation who requested anonymity.

Inflection point

Centrist allies and investors had seen the start of Bolsonaro’s sentence as an inflection point that would force the former president, who has insisted he will run again next year, to pass the baton, with many eyeing Freitas as the most likely choice.

While the Sao Paulo governor has talked like a candidate at events with investors, he’s so far insisted he plans to run for reelection. He’s tiptoed carefully around a potential presidential bid, signaling that he’s only likely to run with Bolsonaro’s explicit support.

Bolsonaro never closed the door on the possibility of choosing a member of his powerful family as a successor. His son Eduardo, a congressman, has built close ties to conservative movements abroad but is living in the U.S., after moving there to lobby the Trump administration to help his father dodge the coup attempt trial. Former First Lady Michelle, who enjoys deep links to Brazil’s growing evangelical movements, has also been considered a potential option.

“It seems that the right has been indeed hijacked by Bolsonaro the father,” said Olga Yangol, head of emerging market research and strategy in the Americas at Credit Agricole. The news should weigh on the real in the short-term, “but I expect there will be some damage control, back-door negotiations,” she added.

Lula’s odds

Although Flavio maintains closer links to centrist parties, many lawmakers and investors have regarded a candidacy by any member of the polarizing Bolsonaro clan as a move that would boost Lula’s odds of reelection.

More than half of Brazilians, 56%, said they held a negative image of Flavio in November compared to 34% who saw him positively, according to LatAm Pulse, a poll conducted by AtlasIntel for Bloomberg News. Freitas, by contrast, is viewed positively by 46% of respondents and negatively by 45%.

Lula, who plans to seek an unprecedented fourth term next year, has led all potential challengers in early election polls. But Freitas gained ground on the leftist president in November, trailing 49% to 47% in a hypothetical run-off scenario, according to LatAm Pulse. The poll didn’t include Flavio in election scenarios.

“Bolsonaro’s endorsement poured some cold water on the market’s excitement for Tarcísio running against Lula next year,” said Dan Pan, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank. “The division among the oppositions may also be favorable for Lula, resulting in the souring mood in the market.”