Brazil’s Bolsonaro endorses son for presidency while out of jail for surgery

Summary

• Jair Bolsonaro endorsed his son, Flavio Bolsonaro, as a pre-candidate for the 2026 presidential election, aiming to continue his conservative legacy.
• Jair Bolsonaro was temporarily released from prison, where he's serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup, for hernia surgery in Brasilia.
• Flavio's candidacy announcement has unsettled financial markets, which expected Jair to support a more experienced candidate like Tarcisio de Freitas.

SAO PAULO – Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro endorsed his son’s 2026 presidential campaign on Dec 25 while out of jail for more surgery that has dogged him since a stabbing seven years ago.  

Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, 44, has said he wants to consolidate his father’s conservative legacy at the Oct 4 vote, where he will try to unseat leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

“With the commitment of not allowing the popular will to be silenced, I make the decision to nominate Flavio Bolsonaro as a pre-candidate for the presidency in 2026,” Jair Bolsonaro said in a letter read out by his son Flavio in front of a hospital in the city of Brasilia where the elder Bolsonaro was being treated. 

He was undergoing scheduled treatment for a hernia, his wife Michelle Bolsonaro said on social media. 

Jair Bolsonaro, 70, has a history of hospitalisations and surgical procedures related to a stabbing he suffered while campaigning in 2018, including a 12-hour procedure for recurring intestinal issues in April 2025.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes authorised Bolsonaro to leave prison, where he is serving a 27-year sentence
for plotting a coup, for the surgery. 

But police were ordered to stay outside his room, where computers and mobile phones have been prohibited.

Deemed a flight risk following his conviction, the former president was detained in late November and began serving his sentence three days later. 

News of the younger Bolsonaro’s presidential candidacy earlier in December rattled financial markets. Investors had bet that the former president would back a more seasoned candidate such as Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, his former infrastructure minister. REUTERS