U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. File
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Just past midnight on November 22, Brazil’s monitoring system received an alert about tampering on Jair Bolsonaro’s ankle device he had been wearing under the terms of his house-arrest in Brasilia. When the police arrived, they found signs of forced opening of the monitor. Mr. Bolsonaro admitted to using a soldering iron, claiming he had a “nervous breakdown.”

By morning, Justice Alexandre de Moraes had revoked his house arrest, citing not only the breach but more evidence of a flight risk: his eldest son, Flavio, had called their supporters to hold a rally outside the house next morning; and the former President lived just 13 km from the U.S. embassy — after previously trying to flee to the Argentine embassy. Taken together, Justice Moraes wrote, these elements made “immediate incarceration unavoidable.”

It’s almost two weeks since the far-right leader was sent to prison to begin his 27-year sentence for the January 8 coup — a plot by Mr. Bolsonaro and a few military officials to overturn the results of 2022 election won by President Lula da Silva, but his absence has barely produced a ripple among his supporters. Last Sunday, a hundred people appeared for the “March for Freedom,” a planned show of strength that fizzled out as soon as it started. To make matters worse, the news cycle has been dominated by the Bolsonaro family’s infighting and deepening cracks across Brazil’s right-wing parties.

On Friday, Mr. Bolsonaro tried to regain the lost narrative as he anointed Mr. Flavio, a federal senator, as the presidential candidate of his Liberal Party (PL) for the 2026 presidential election. “It is with great responsibility that I confirm the decision of Brazil’s greatest political and moral leader, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, to give me the mission of continuing our national project,” said Mr. Flavio, adding that he “cannot, and will not, accept watching our country move toward instability, insecurity, and discouragement.” The party leadership rushed to bless the choice. “If Bolsonaro said it, it’s settled,” declared PL president Valdemar Costa.

While the party — adrift since the former President was convicted last year — has endorsed Mr. Bolsonaro’s plan for political survival, the markets delivered a different verdict.

Investors, who had hoped Sao Paulo governor Tarcisio de Freitas, a moderate, would be the right’s new leader, recoiled at the decision: within hours of Mr. Flavio’s announcement, the dollar jumped 2.31% and the stock market went down by 4.31%.

In Brasilia, the message was clear: the markets, much of the right and centrist parties, which can sway votes either way, do not want a future built on the former President’s last name.

The Bolsonaro name took some beating this week already as the family’s succession battle burst into open, pitting former first lady Michelle against her three stepsons — all politicians who claim their father’s legacy. Eduardo Bolsonaro, the middle son from his first wife and a federal deputy currently in self-imposed exile in the U.S., started the fire by declaring that Mr. Flavio was “more prepared” than Ms. Michelle, who also harbours ambition of running for President. Mr. Eduardo dismissed her rising stature and also mocked the São Paulo governor as “a centrist technocrat”. Ms. Michelle fired back with a pointed post: “I respect my stepchildren’s opinion, but I think differently”.

If Mr. Bolsonaro’s fall and the family infighting were not bad enough for the Brazilian right, the reaction from Washington has been devastating.

Asked about the arrest of his onetime ally, U.S. President Trump shrugged: “I don’t know anything about that. I did not hear.” Moments later, he offered a perfunctory “too bad” before boarding Marine One. Despite Mr. Eduardo’s months of lobbying — including pleas for sanctions against Brazil for “jailing his father” — Mr. Trump’s response signaled that the U.S. President has moved on.

The clearest sign that the mood in Washington has changed came on Tuesday, when Mr. Trump called Mr. Lula for a chat. According to Mr. Trump, the conversation focused on trade between the two countries and the sanctions imposed on Brazilian officials. “We had a very good conversation. I like him [Lula], very good. We had some good meetings but today we had a very good conversation,” Mr. Trump said. According to the Brazilian side, Mr. Lula praised Mr. Trump for recently removing 40% tariff on Brazilian coffee and beef.

According to sources in Brasilia, Mr. Trump’s softer tone towards Brazil could also be linked to a possible diplomatic solution to the Venezuelan crisis triggered by the U.S. muscle flexing in the Caribbeans. “President Lula is in the position of being able to speak credibly to both Caracas and Washington. He has warned against foreign interventions in the region but has also called for the need to find a diplomatic solution,” says a Brazilian Foreign Ministry official who is not authorised to speak on the matter. “With Trump now receptive to conversations with Brasilia, Lula can position Brazil as the channel through which both sides can speak without losing face.”

Washington may also have realised that Mr. Lula is sitting quite comfortably for the 2026 elections. Recent polls have shown that rejection of the Bolsonaro surname is very high. According to a latest survey, Mr. Lula leads Mr. Flavio by more than 20%. Mr. Flavio’s elevation as his father’s successor may have shored up the Bolsonaro clan internally, but electorally it hands Mr. Lula a big electoral advantage.

Mr. Bolsonaro — and, by extension, Brazil’s far-right — is facing a legal storm that has been gathering around his family for years. Already in jail, he also faces a police inquiry into his government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and corruption in health contracts between 2020 and 2022, a period during which more than 700,000 Brazilians died. On the day Bolsonaro was arrested, Brazilian social media erupted with the families of Covid-19 victims urging the country not to forget what they called the “crimes of the pandemic.”

Sitting in a cell, Mr. Bolsonaro might be plotting to revive his family’s political future by naming Mr. Flavio as successor, but Brazil is in no mood to forgive or forget his crimes.

Published – December 08, 2025 12:54 am IST