(Bloomberg) — Brazil’s fiery right-wing motion unleashed during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency in 2018 is to replace his name.
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A year after Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed the capital in a bid to overturn his election defeat, members of his inner circle are trying to chart a more moderate path toward municipal contests in October, as they attempt to broaden their appeal ahead of a 2026 presidential race in which their standard-bearer can’t take part.
“The right wants to be more center-right,” Flavio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son and senator from Rio de Janeiro, said in a recent interview.
The fledgling strategy is still loosely detailed, and it’s unclear whether Bolsonaro himself agrees. Although in June the country’s electoral tribunal barred him from running for office for 8 years, the former army captain, who has ignored calls for moderation in his presidency. , remains the de facto leader of the Brazilian right.
But the fact that key figures close to him are contemplating a renewal is, of course, evidence of the bleak future facing a movement that not long ago was at the forefront of a global movement to the right and that, even after Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat, seemed poised to dominate Brazilian politics.
Read more: Bolsonaro’s political ban makes him a right-wing kingmaker
Instead, it has suffered repeated setbacks since leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva came to power in early 2023. Faced with a litany of legal troubles, Bolsonaro fled to Florida for three months after the election. Even after his return in March, he largely stayed on the sidelines as polls piled up and a stronger-than-expected economy propelled Lula through a glittering first year.
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Brazilian prosecutors have also charged many others with crimes similar to the Jan. 8, 2023, attack in Brasilia, dampening the enthusiasm of supporters who have since struggled to mobilize public protests opposed to the government.
Read more: Bolsonaro’s coup after defeat, according to congressional investigation
All of this has turned Bolsonarism, as the movement is called, into a global exception. As right-wing parties and leaders invade the mainstream from the Netherlands to Argentina (and Donald Trump prepares for his return to the United States), Brazil’s right is stagnant. in a political hangover that he is suffering to shake off.
“Since the elections, the right has not had a transparent concept of what to do,” said Isabela Kalil, an anthropologist at the Sao Paulo School of Sociology and Politics who has studied the rise of the far right. “It’s not a crisis identity because they know what they want. They’re going through a leadership crisis and they want to say what they want done. “
“We want to have the centre-right”
For now, that task falls to Flavio Bolsonaro and Valdemar da Costa Neto, the leader of the Liberal Party that Bolsonaro followed and helped herald good luck in 2022, when its members won the highest percentage of seats in Brazil’s Congress.
Costa Neto has opened up the party that once supported leftist governments to candidates who have been inspired by Bolsonaro, but has since sought to grow it into a larger organization to increase its appeal and power.
Read more: Bolsonaro has lost Brazil, his conservatism is still alive
The goal is to achieve 1,000 victories in October’s municipal elections and sees victories in 20% of the 5,000 elections as a launching pad for a difficult challenge to Lula in 2026.
To achieve them, “we have to have the center-right with us,” Costa Neto said in an interview at the party’s headquarters in Brasilia. “There are a lot of other people on the strong right. “
Bolsonaro said he had encouraged his allies to adopt a “flexible” technique when choosing candidates, especially in regions such as northeastern Brazil, the stronghold of Lula’s Workers’ Party.
Bolsonarismo won’t bend on priorities like abortion, drug legalization and free markets, but it shouldn’t demand 100% alignment on other subjects, he said, adding that it needs to adopt a softer rhetorical approach as well.
“The voter who likes those more radical things will end up voting for a center-right candidate,” he said. “So it doesn’t make sense to radicalize the tone of the speech. “
This strategy has already faced challenges. Bolsonaro reported in November that he had disagreements with Costa Neto over mayoral candidates. And in his efforts to maintain influence in the search for his successor, he has publicly criticized potential presidential candidates, such as the governor of Sao Paulo. . Tarcisio de Freitas, for being too willing to work with the left.
Bolsonaro “has no future, but he does not want to abandon his role as a hegemonic leader yet,” said Andrei Roman, head of the Sao Paulo-based polling firm AtlasIntel. “They’re in limbo whenever they need to make decisions, because there’s always a fear of alienating Bolsonaro.”
Bolsonaro allies say they need him to play a key role in the looming election cycles. The Jan. 8 criminal cases have left supporters “afraid” to take to the streets, right-wing congresswoman Bia Kicis said in an interview, with planned rallies meant to re-energize the movement failing to generate large crowds. But no one is more capable of jarring them out of that slumber than Bolsonaro.
“His ability to mobilize people and transfer votes will have significant weight in defining the elections,” Ronaldo Caiado, the governor of Goias state and another potential presidential candidate, said in a phone interview.
But it risks undermining efforts to tone down the narrative: Bolsonaro ascended to the presidency by punishing the political class, praising Brazil’s military dictatorship, and attacking warring parties and minority populations. When his popularity waned, he returned to this stance, attacking Covid-19. vaccines during the pandemic and spread conspiracy theories about Brazil’s electoral formula ahead of the election.
Energy From Abroad
Bolsonarism is far from dead, say analysts and conflicting parties. Some elements of his socially conservative agenda are very popular, and now more Brazilians identify with the right than the left, Roman said.
Lula faces a potential economic slowdown in 2024 that could affect approval ratings, which have so far remained relatively stable: 38% of Brazilians rated his government as fair or good, and another 30%, in a Datafolha vote on Dec. 7, compared with 30% who say it is bad or terrible. His allies see Bolsonarism as a persistent political force that the left will have to fight head-on.
“We see the far right not only opposing, but trying to impose an agenda on the country,” Senator Humberto Costa, the coordinator of the Workers’ Party’s 2024 electoral strategy, said. “We must be ready to do national political confrontation.”
Bolsonaro has also gained his power from recent victories through right-wing figures such as Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders and Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei. The right-wing movement could make significant gains in 2024, when 40 national elections will be held, adding up to one U. S. presidential election. in which Trump is the Republican front-runner.
Read More: Milei Is Sworn In as Argentina Braces for His Shock Therapy
Bolsonaro has bet precisely on Milei, who will attend his inauguration in December and that the Argentine will give Brazilians proof that a right-wing government is preferable to its left-wing predecessor. That poses its own challenges, especially if Milei’s mix of radical rhetoric and surprise treatment of Argentina’s struggling economy fails.
But for Flavio Bolsonaro, the “positive ethical effect” of victories like Milei’s outweighs any danger to the government.
“It’s something we have to come to terms with,” he said.
“Beatriz Reis’s. “
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