BRASILIA — The Brazilian senator and presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro published a video this Sunday in which he is seen putting on a bulletproof vest under his clothing before going out to a massive event.
“Many people ask me why I am wearing a vest, right?” the first-born son of former President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) began and argued that, just as there are workers who wear “helmets” or “uniforms”, it is his turn to wear ballistic protection.
“I don’t like going out on the street with this, but I have to go out. A lot of hatred, a lot of attack, a lot of dehumanization. I know that these people have no limits to destroy whoever gets in their way,” he expressed.
In that sense, the presidential candidate cited the episode that his father experienced in 2018, during the electoral campaign that led him to the presidency, when he was stabbed in the middle of a massive rally.
“I know what they are capable of. They already tried to do it with my father. They didn’t succeed. I can’t tempt fate,” he exclaimed as he zipped up his vest.
Lula’s main adversary
However, he closed his message with a defiant tone towards his detractors: “Do you think they are going to intimidate me? They won’t. I am prepared and, look… there is Bolsonaro blood here,” he said, hitting his forearm.
Less than five months before the first round of the presidential elections, the right-wing senator is the main adversary of the current leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The latest polls placed them technically tied; However, the latest data from the Datafolha opinion institute, released this Friday, showed that Lula regained some oxygen, with 47% of the preferences compared to 43% for Bolsonaro in an eventual second round.
These data represent a brake on the growth trend that Bolsonaro’s candidacy has shown since he was appointed his father’s successor in December. However, the elections are several months away.
Scandal
When the polls were favorable, the scandal broke out: Flávio Bolsonaro would have had dealings with a banker imprisoned for alleged fraud, which threatens to complicate his presidential dispute with Lula.
The 45-year-old senator was chosen as political heir by his father, the former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, convicted of coup plotting and excluded from the electoral race.
The son quickly established himself as the main rival of the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 80, who is seeking re-election.
The polls placed them even in an eventual second round and even with some advantage for Flávio Bolsonaro.
But that was before texts and an audio of the senator were revealed last week to Daniel Vorcaro, a banker accused of a million-dollar fraud, with close relations with power bodies.
In the message released by Intercept Brasil, the presidential candidate asks the financier for money for “Dark Horse”, a biographical film of Jair Bolsonaro, produced in the United States and starring actor Jim Caviezel.
For this film that honors the career of the former president, sentenced to 27 years in prison for attempted coup d’état, Vorcaro would have promised 24 million dollars, of which he would have finally paid a little less than half.
Flávio Bolsonaro, who until then had claimed to have no relationship with Vorcaro, had to admit having asked him for money to make the film, although he denied having done anything illegal.
There was “zero public money” involved, senator said.
