Brazil: Internal Bolsonaro clan war affects Flávio’s candidacy

The presidential candidacy of former president Jair Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio Bolsonaro, had already suffered a blow when a report by The Intercept Brasil revealed that he had asked banker Daniel Vorcaro for S$24 million, equivalent to around R$134 million, to fund the filming of a movie about his father. Daniel Vorcaro is in prison, accused of having led multibillion-real fraud schemes at Banco Master, an institution liquidated by the Brazilian Central Bank in November 2025. But since Bolsonaro voters seem to be... resilient, to say the least, the candidate had begun rising again in voting-intention polls. Then, in June, Jair Bolsonaro’s wife Michelle - who is not the mother of the former army captain’s three adult sons, only of his 15-year-old daughter - entered into yet another public dispute with Flávio, straining relations within the far right and affecting the polls.

Disagreements between Michelle and Bolsonaro’s sons are nothing new, but at this crucial moment of pre-election disputes, they have taken on greater importance. That is because, in addition to the president, Brazil must elect senators, deputies, and governors, and political commentators have said this may be even more important than the presidential election, especially for the PT, Lula’s party, and the PL, the party of the Bolsonaro family. The Senate is the institution responsible for approving new members of the Supreme Federal Court and is also the only one that can remove its justices - one of the main agendas of the Bolsonaro right since former president Jair Bolsonaro was convicted of attempting a coup d’etat. Speaking from the United States, since he could be arrested if he returns to Brazil for coercion and sentenced to four years in prison in the same case, Eduardo Bolsonaro said in an interview with a Brazilian radio station that the Senate is important because it is the only body that can “stop the dictators in robes,” referring to the Supreme Court justices.

The importance attached to the electoral race, however, has caused splits within the Bolsonaro right itself, driven by the public feud between former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro and the PL’s presidential pre-candidate, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro.

After releasing videos on June 24 in which she said she had been mistreated by her stepson amid disagreements over the PL’s electoral lineup in Ceará, she resigned on June 30 from the presidency of PL Women, without clarifying whether she will run for a Senate seat representing the Federal District, something that had been considered certain within the Bolsonaro camp.

In the videos attacking Flávio, which total 27 minutes, Michelle responded to demands that she worked to support her stepson’s pre-candidacy and said she had received a “stab in the back” from him last year, when the Bolsonaro family went through a crisis over political negotiations for the elections in Ceará. Michelle refuses to accept the PL leadership’s plans to support the candidacy of Ciro Gomes, from the center-right PSDB party, for governor of the state and, as part of that alliance, to sideline the PL Senate pre-candidacy of Priscila Costa.

What drew attention was the fact that the videos recorded by Michelle were very carefully thought out and full of symbols. She appears seated next to a golden sculpture of a hand making the “I love you” sign in Brazilian Sign Language, highlighting her cause of inclusion and accessibility for deaf people; a Star of David and a necklace referring to support for Israel; a map of PL Brazil in the background, reinforcing her leadership of the party’s women’s wing; as well as diplomas, medals, and a “Peace Ambassador” certificate on the wall behind her, representing authority and institutional recognition.

At the beginning of the year, political analysts saw Michelle as a potential challenger to Lula for the presidency and even conducted voting-intention polls in which the former first lady showed strong numbers. But Bolsonaro’s party was betting on her candidacy for the Senate. Michelle belongs to a wing more closely linked to evangelical Christian nationalism, while Bolsonaro’s sons belong to a more radical wing of ideological nationalist right-wing politics - an image Flávio has been trying to soften with the Brazilian market.

The public dispute between Michelle and Flávio Bolsonaro is already affecting voters’ perceptions. The more radical wing of Bolsonarism has even been saying that women should be banned from voting. But a poll released on July 3 indicated that most respondents interpreted the video published by Michelle as a move with political objectives and believe the episode weakens Flávio’s presidential candidacy. According to the survey, 37.8% of voters said the conflict greatly harms the senator’s pre-candidacy. Another 26.3% said the damage weakens his campaign somewhat. Only 22.4% believe the crisis has no electoral impact, while 7.1% believe it greatly strengthens Flávio.

But there is still a long way to go before candidacies are officially confirmed in August, and in Brazilian politics everything has been changing from one day to the next. The fact is that, from the looks of it, the greatest threat to Bolsonarism is the Bolsonaro family itself.