During the 2024 elections, more than once the governor of , (Republicans), and the former president () publicly demonstrated their disagreement on the electoral strategies to elect the mayor of the country’s largest capital.
In addition to the disagreements, interlocutors state that the former president and the governor have a great relationship and have never had conflicts in their personal dealings.
Despite this, Tarcísio’s victory in São Paulo last year and his consolidation as leader of the right, while Bolsonaro is ineligible, raise the possibility of a future dilemma in 2026, as the governor is the main name to replace the former president in the race for Planalto, evaluate experts interviewed by Sheet.
“The 2024 electoral balance is bad for Bolsonaro because his most direct candidacies were defeated and his weight has decreased. […] In this context, Tarcísio continues to be the main name to replace him”, assesses researcher and political analyst Júlia Almeida.
Publicly, Tarcísio maintains support for his political godfather. The governor states that he will run in São Paulo and that the candidate for President will be Bolsonaro. But the statements are no guarantee that the scenario will not change.
The anthropologist and coordinator of the Observatório da Extrema Direita research center, Isabela Kalil, assesses that everything depends on the social situation that the country will face in the coming years.
“The position will depend on the developments of the investigation [da Polícia Federal]. It is likely that, until the elections, he will maintain this ambiguous position. But, from the moment Bolsonaro is a risk to the image of a moderate [de Tarcísio]it is possible that it will come off”, says the anthropologist.
“I’m not going to get into a split with Bolsonaro,” the governor declared in 2023 when the possibility was still being raised of former minister Ricardo Salles (then in PL, now in Novo) running for Mayor of São Paulo.
The split ball, however, came and went several times, and Tarcísio proved to be the right balance by maintaining support for () during the 2024 campaign.
Bolsonaro resisted Nunes’ name, nodding to the candidacy of Pablo Marçal (PRTB), but, in the end, what happened behind the scenes, being pressured to support Nunes’ ticket, in which he chose the candidate for vice mayor, Ricardo Mello Araújo (PL), reserve colonel of the PM.
At a certain point, when Nunes fell in the electoral polls, the former president asked Tarcísio to improve the mayor’s own image so that he would not be harmed.
During the campaign, the governor even called Bolsonaro, uncomfortable with the statements made by pastor Silas Malafaia, who said he suspected that Tarcísio was working behind the scenes so that the former president remained ineligible, allowing him to launch himself into the Planalto.
Before the municipal elections, in 2023, the former president declared that there was a difference between him and the governor.
“Everything isn’t right. I don’t rule Tarcísio. He’s a great manager. Politically, he makes his mistakes. I would never do certain things he does with the left,” said Bolsonaro in an interview with Rádio Gaúcha.
The episode happened after the governor appeared with the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad (PT), after a meeting in which he sealed an agreement for tax reform.
In reserve, sources linked to the governor of São Paulo say that Bolsonaro and Tarcísio are different people and that they disagree on some points relating to politics, especially in the ideological area, but they never lost their friendship.
One proof would be the former president’s overnight stays at Palácio dos Bandeirantes during his visits to the capital of São Paulo. Bolsonaro and Tarcísio’s interlocutors see the current governor’s candidacy for Planalto in 2026 as unlikely.
“There are two issues in dispute. The first is the electoral chance. His candidacy articulates a broad arc of the extreme right and the right, but an eventual defeat also removes him from the government of São Paulo. In this sense, Kassab’s signal [PSD] post-elections, placing support for Lula in 2026 and the need to postpone Tarcísio’s candidacy to 2030, is a problem, as are current electoral polls that place Lula as victorious in any scenario in 2026”, analyzes Júlia Almeida.
