Flavio Bolsonaro Locks In Presidential Bid, Would Step Aside Only If Jair Is Freed and Reinstated

Flavio Bolsonaro announced this past weekend that he's running for president of Brazil, ending months of speculation about who would carry the family banner into October's election.

The Rio de Janeiro senator said on social media Friday that he discussed the race with his father, Jair Bolsonaro, and that the former president chose him as the candidate. Flavio told reporters Sunday, according to Breitbart, that there's no turning back on the campaign now, but he'd step down if his father is both freed from prison and legally allowed to run again.

That's a big if. Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence and is banned from holding office for 35 years. He was convicted separately for a plot to overturn his 2022 election loss to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, according to Al Jazeera, after Brazil's top electoral court had already ruled him ineligible for abusing his power while in office. He's 70, according to Breitbart, and under the terms of his ban would be allowed to run again at age 105.

The polling picture

A Quaest survey published Friday and reported by Al Jazeera has Lula at 43 percent against Bolsonaro's 40 percent in a simulated runoff, a statistical tie once you account for the two-point margin of error. That's tighter than an earlier Quaest poll from August 5, which had Lula up 44 to 39.

In a first-round scenario, Lula holds a bigger cushion, 38 percent to Bolsonaro's 31. Three other candidates trail well behind: Renan Santos and Ronaldo Caiado each at 4 percent, Romeu Zema at 2. The survey, conducted August 10 through 13 with 2,004 respondents, was commissioned by Globo.

Lula, 80, is running for a fourth term. He launched his campaign August 2 at the Workers' Party convention in Sao Paulo, leaning hard into economic nationalism. He called for more defense spending and vowed to protect Brazil's rare earth and mineral reserves from foreign control, telling the crowd he wants Brazil "prepared, so that no one invades this country," according to Al Jazeera. He named China, the U.S., and France specifically as countries that won't get access to those minerals without respecting Brazilian sovereignty.

That message plays directly against a backdrop of tension with Washington. Brazil has vowed to retaliate if the U.S. imposes tariffs on some of its products, according to The Guardian, and Lula has publicly clashed with the Trump administration over visa issues, at one point revoking the visa of a Trump adviser in response to Brazil's health minister being denied entry to the U.S.