While his father sits in prison, Flavio Bolsonaro is beating the man who imprisoned him, Lula da Silver, in the first round of Brazil’s Presidential elections. He will face Lula in the final round. Bolsonaro was not the only member of his family to win that night, as four more family members won public office. Two of Flavio’s sons won seats in Brazil’s lower house.
Bolsonaro clan sweeps Brazil elections as son Flavio heads into presidential runoff – DD News
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Banned from public office and under house arrest, former President Jair Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year sentence for a coup plot following his 2022 election defeat. Yet, from confinement, the 71-year-old watched a stunning political resurrection unfold.
His eldest son, 45-year-old lawmaker Flavio Bolsonaro, has scored a massive, upset victory over leftist President Lula da Silva in the first round of the presidential race.
International reactions were immediate. In the U.S., President Donald Trump hailed the result as an “amazing, very, very big victory.” In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted his congratulations on X, saying that he looks forward to “restoring the extraordinary friendship between Israel and Brazil.”
The result instantly makes Flavio Bolsonaro the favourite heading into the decisive runoff on 25th October. For Bolsonaro Senior though, who is currently serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for a coup plot, the celebrations are just beginning. Four more members of the Bolsonaro family swept into public office. The former President’s wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, and his second son, Carlos, secured seats in the upper House of Brazil’s parliament. His youngest son, Jair Renan, and his brother, Renato, took seats in the lower House. Analysts say that in Brazilian history, no political clan has ever managed to elect so many members all at once.
That’s not all. Bolsonaro’s right-wing Liberal Party completely redrew the map of Brazil’s parliament, emerging as the largest single-party representation in both Houses. In the 81-seat Senate, the party nearly doubled its footprint — surging from 15 to 28 seats. This marks the strongest performance by any single party since Brazil returned to democracy and enacted its Constitution in the late 1980s. In the lower House, they climbed to 121 seats. Combined with allied centre-to-right blocs, Conservatives now hold a crushing working majority of nearly 250 seats in the lower House and over 30 in the upper House.
Most importantly for Bolsonaro Senior, this legislative fortress could secure him much-needed amnesty. An allied Parliament gives Flavio Bolsonaro the power to erase his father’s legal woes. Flavio’s ultimate campaign promise has been to walk up the ramp of the Presidential compound next year shoulder-to-shoulder with his father. And an amnesty for Bolsonaro Senior could become a reality even sooner if the current Parliament decides to curry favour with the incoming Government. The Senate’s pro-Bolsonaro bloc is even creeping close to the 54-vote threshold required to impeach the very Supreme Court justices who convicted the far-right patriarch.
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