Flavio Bolsonaro lost Sunday’s presidential run-off to incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, taking just over 48.2% of valid votes to Lula’s just under 51.8%, according to the Supreme Electoral Court. Lula’s margin was about 4.4 million votes. Bolsonaro has not conceded, but his party has.
Jair Bolsonaro, who governed from 2019 to 2022, is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election. He is under house arrest because of his health. Freeing him was a central aim of his son’s campaign.
“I think Flavio’s defeat surprised Jair and his political allies. It is a blow especially for Jair, because one of the main goals of his son’s campaign was to free him, even if that meant undermining the authority and independence of Brazil’s judiciary”, Bhreno Vieira, a political scientist at the Federal University of Pernambuco, told Polish Press Agency (PAP).
Experts said the movement was far from finished. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party will be the largest force in both houses of Congress, although without a majority, and will hold six state governorships, more than any other party.
“These numbers show that Bolsonarism has a political and electoral structure that goes beyond Jair Bolsonaro”, Vieira said, adding that the camp must now rethink its opposition strategy and find leaders from outside the family.
Jorge Gomes of the Federal University of Campina Grande pointed to young figures emerging beyond the clan, including congressman Nikolas Ferreira and Lucas Pavanato, who won a seat in the lower house with a record vote.
“Flavio’s loss is undoubtedly a blow, but this is an established political movement, accustomed to transforming and reviving itself”, Gomes said. He said it currently operates according to a “hierarchical logic centred on blood ties”, but added: “The movement can survive outside the family”.
Ana Tereza Duarte of Facultade Central university in Recife said Jair Bolsonaro was unlikely to be freed soon, but his camp would prepare for the next election, in which Lula cannot run because of constitutional term limits.
It is unclear whether the 81-year-old Lula’s Workers’ Party can keep its popularity without him. Duarte said she saw no potential successor to the former union leader, who has defined Brazil’s left for decades.
“Lula wins because he is Lula, not because he is from the Workers’ Party. In the next elections there will not be a candidate with such a strong leadership position”, she said.
(jh)
Source: PAP