Flavio Bolsonaro: In the name of the father, sons, and holy ideology

Will “Son No. 1” become the second president from the Bolsonaro family? Flavio, the eldest of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s five children, is neck-and-neck in the polls with incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as the country heads to the polls Sunday in the first round of the presidential election. 

Jair Bolsonaro is likely following his 45-year-old son’s campaign closely. For the patriarch, this is not just a matter of family pride. Sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison after his convicting for plotting a coup following his 2022 election defeat, the former president is surely rooting for his son. “Bolsonaro Junior”, the Liberal Party’s candidate, has promised to grant his dad a pardon as soon as he assumes Brazil’s highest office.

But first, the eldest son must defeat incumbent President Lula. That is not a foregone conclusion.

Brand Bolsonaro

Flavio Bolsonaro is widely considered a shadow of his father. He is not a “charismatic and popular leader", said Andreza Aruska, director of the Brazil Institute at King’s College London. “He’s not a great orator either and he can come across as lacking in self-confidence,” added Corneel Weyers, a Brazil specialist at the Paris-based Center for International Studies (CERI) at Sciences Po.

While he is running under the Bolsonaro banner, the son has also had to maintain some distance from his convicted and jailed father on the campaign trail. “Jair Bolsonaro is no longer as popular, and slightly more than half the population believes he should serve his full sentence,” noted Georg Walter Wink, a Latin America specialist at the University of Copenhagen who has studied the foundations of Brazil’s far right.

But it’s still the power of the family name that has managed to catapult Flavio Bolsonaro into a statistical dead heat with Lula in the opinion polls.

At the official launch of his campaign in July, an AI-generated video of his jailed father endorsing the son was screened on stage. The video sparked a storm, with Brazil’s Supreme Court demanding an explanation about the appearance of the AI clone of Jair Bolsonaro, who is barred from making public statements while serving his sentence. The former president had to deny authorising the use of his image and voice for the deepfake video.

Read moreBrazil's Jair Bolsonaro denies authorizing deepfake for election message

Opting for a legally risky video screening in a country where the use of deep fakes is as widespread as it is strictly regulated does not exactly signal a break with Bolsonaro senior.

Watch moreFocus: What's real and what's fake? How AI is impacting Brazil's election race

But Flavio Bolsonaro is no stranger to public scrutiny. Last month, it emerged that Candidate Bolsonaro was under investigation for alleged corruption and money laundering linked to the upcoming film “Dark Horse”. He is accused of seeking funding for the biopic glorifying his father, played by Jim Caviezel, a US actor linked to far-right circles. The film was originally scheduled for a September 11 release, but it was postponed indefinitely.

Political schizophrenia

Flavio Bolsonaro actually has little choice but to campaign on the strength of his family name. “He has almost nothing else to legitimise his candidacy,” noted Aruska.

In a political environment as polarised as Brazil’s, he “cannot afford to truly distance himself from his father without the risk of losing votes among his electoral base, which would accuse him of betraying ‘Bolsonarism’”, said Chris Lyon, a Brazil specialist at the University of Birmingham.

In Brazil, it is also perfectly natural to claim affiliation with a political dynasty. “People often talk about the three ‘B’s – Bible, bullets, and beef to describe the major [conservative] political blocs,” said Wink, referring to the Christian Evangelicals, the military, and landowners. “But there is also a fourth: family,” he noted.

During his campaign, Flavio Bolsonaro engaged in a balancing act between showcasing his father’s legacy and distinguishing himself from the patriarch that smacked of political schizophrenia. While he claimed to have his father’s support and blessing, the son also “removed his name from several campaign materials in recent months", noted Weyers.

He is also “much less blunt in his manner of speaking, and unlike his father, Flavio Bolsonaro avoids any misogynistic or homophobic remarks; he is also careful not to be as aggressive towards the press", explained Wink.

There is also a shift in tone in the way he presents himself. Whereas Jair Bolsonaro “played the role of the angry outsider challenging the system, the son is more willing to don the mantle of a mainstream politician who favours compromise and knows how to build coalitions", said Lyon.

The question now is whether Flavio Bolsonaro is willing to politically “kill” his father to make Bolsonarism appear more respectable. In reality, the far-right candidate is responding to “a tactical imperative to expand his electoral base,” said Aruska. While the extreme political polarisation has certainly whittled down the ranks of undecided voters in Brazil, “there are still some left, and Flavio Bolsonaro is primarily seeking to win over a segment of women who haven’t yet made up their minds", explained Lyon. It’s no coincidence, in fact, that he often makes public appearances with his wife, Fernanda Bolsonaro.

A family affair

But the imaging upgrade is “pure media spin", according to Weyers. “We must be careful not to give in to the temptation to believe that Flavio Bolsonaro is more moderate than his father,” he said. “The ideological substance is exactly the same.”

The 2026 Flavio Bolsonaro campaign is a sort of “family joint venture to bring Bolsonarism back to power", said Aruska. Behind Flavio are his younger brothers. “There is a very clear division of labour within the clan: Carlos plays the role of the pit bull on social media; Eduardo, who has gone into exile in the US, is responsible for forging international ties with other far-right movements; and Flavio was chosen to lead the campaign because he comes across as the most diplomatic member of the family,” explained Wink.

Flavio Bolsonaro’s political career also demonstrates that he is ideologically in perfect alignment with his father. As a state senator for Rio de Janeiro since 2019, “he has championed the same values as his father — he promotes a highly repressive security policy, defends family values, advocates an economic policy inspired by the model implemented by Javier Milei in Argentina, and opposes any environmental regulations,” said Lyon.

As a Congressman, Flavio Bolsonaro was implicated in a number of scandals. He is notably accused of having close ties to the “milicias", paramilitary groups made up of former law enforcement officers. Senator Bolsonaro was also linked to a case involving the embezzlement of civil servants’ salaries, which was closed in 2025 without convictions.

The stakes for Brazil’s democracy are even higher in this presidential election, said Weyers. “The first time with Jair Bolsonaro, we wondered how seriously we should take him. This time, we know. And the fact that Flavio Bolsonaro presents a more technocratic profile makes the threat even greater.”

Lyon agreed. “His ability to negotiate and play the game of alliances could make him even more effective at advancing the Bolsonarism agenda,” he warned.

This article has been translated from the original in French.