Flávio Bolsonaro announces he wants to ‘reform the Constitution to redemocratize’ Brazil

Right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, who hopes to win Brazil’s presidential election before the end of the month, announced Tuesday that he intends to leverage the large parliamentary bloc won by his party, the Liberal Party (PL), in Sunday’s vote to push through deep changes. The son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup against President Lula’s government, said at a campaign event in Goiânia, near Brasília, that he wants to use the PL’s legislative strength to appoint the presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and to “reform the Constitution, to redemocratize the country, so that institutions once again respect the Constitution.”

Among the newly elected parliamentarians are four Bolsonaros: the patriarch’s wife, Michelle, and his second son, Carlos, who will take office in the Senate in 2027. The fourth son, Jair Renan, and Renato Bolsonaro, the former president’s brother, will serve as deputies.

Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son, struck an institutional tone at his first public appearances since Sunday night, when he placed ahead of President Lula in the first round. The PL candidate won 47% of the vote against the Workers’ Party’s (PT) 45% — not enough to claim outright victory that night — but a result that puts him in a favorable position to win the runoff on October 25. He starts as the favorite because Lula is the sole leftist candidate while Bolsonaro was the main figurehead of a divided right.

Endorsements for Bolsonaro from his liberal and conservative rivals have already begun to arrive. Former Minas Gerais governor Romeu Zema offered his support on Monday, but it is largely symbolic since he garnered less than 1% of support, roughly 326,000 votes.

More valuable is the backing of Ronaldo Caiado, who finished fifth in the presidential race and is the former governor of Goiás; his endorsement was formalized in the presence of Bolsonaro, who traveled to the state capital, Goiânia. Caiado received nearly 2.2%, about 2.6 million votes, which are already likely to add to the total for Senator Bolsonaro. Caiado made his aim clear: “I am here to defeat the PT.”

President Lula did not appear in public on Monday or Tuesday. He held meetings in Brasília at the presidential residence with his campaign coordination team and some political allies. The president is betting on going on the offensive in this second phase. The plan is to strengthen a message centered on fear.

Rejection of the Workers’ Party and of Lula is a major mobilizing force behind the candidacy led by Bolsonaro, who is considered a candidate with significant vulnerabilities.

The right-wing senator is under investigation for corruption in the Banco Master scandal, but none of that stopped the win he recorded on Sunday. Besides outperforming Lula, the Bolsonaros’ PL won 121 of the 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies — a 20% increase that makes it once again the largest party in the lower house — and with its allies it holds almost 50 seats among the 81 in the Senate and 10 of the state governors elected in the first round.

The most important of them — Tarcísio de Freitas, re-elected as governor of São Paulo in a resounding victory over the PT — was also beside Bolsonaro on Tuesday. De Freitas, who was once widely touted as the right’s presidential candidate until Bolsonaro backed his son Flávio, kept some distance from the family during the first phase of the campaign. With his win secured in Brazil’s richest and most populous state, it remains to be seen how involved he will be in the conservative right’s battle for the runoff.

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