Amid a climb of friction with children of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) over the past week, PL President Valdemar Costa Neto praised Rio’s mayor Eduardo Paes (PSD) and said Councilman Carlos Bolsonaro, who opposes the Rio de Janeiro chamber, will resign his term this year. Valdemar’s statements generated discomfort for party members, who denied the possibility of supporting Paes. On another front, the PL chief exchanged barbs with Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro.
Valdemar sought, in interviews in recent days, to delimit Eduardo and Carlos’ performances in the 2026 elections. Regarding the deputy, the leader told Folha de S. Paulo that he would “kill his father at once” if he left the PL to run for another party – hypothesis ventilated by Eduardo himself in recent months. In Carlos’s case, Valdemar expressed pressure for the councilman to dive as soon as possible in the Senate campaign by Santa Catarina, a project defended by his father.
Carlos has been making punctual incursions in Santa Catarina municipalities, and tests the land before officializing the candidacy. To this day, he has only played elections in the capital of Rio, since 2000. On Friday, for example, he visited brother Jair Renan, who is a councilman in Balneário Camboriú, and also passed through Blumenau, where he said he intends to “go back here many times”, still without spelling out a change in electoral domicile.
In an interview last Monday to young Pan, however, Valdemar said Carlos “already rented apartment” in Santa Catarina and accelerated his migration:
– Carlos will leave the City Council (from Rio) this year and will lose more than a year in office, because he wants to live in Santa Catarina. This is defined, ”said the chief of the PL.
Reserved, however, Carlos’s allies still evaluate the possibility of him running for the Senate without having to resign in Rio. Electoral legislation does not require this kind of disincompratibilization for councilors, when they compete for another position in the same state.
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In the same interview, Valdemar said that Paes, to whom Carlos opposes, “is very good mayor” and said that members of the PL have to “recognize these things, even being from another party.” The leader also suggested that there is “sympathy” by a Paes candidacy to the Rio Government.
“I find anyone very difficult to get the election out of Eduardo Paes.” And our people have sympathy for him too, ”said Valdemar.
Valdemar’s ally and one of the PL leaders in Rio, Bruno Bonetti told Globo that the chance of supporting Paes in 2026 “is zero, in Bottles”. The leader recalled that Valdemar himself said, in the same interview, that PL Fluminense “has autonomy” to decide the alliances in the state.
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– In 2020, we helped to elect Eduardo (Paes) to the city, and then he took us from the government. What would be the sense of composing now? Especially after we competed against him in 2024 – said Bonetti, in reference to Alexandre Ramagem (PL) to City Hall last year.
On social networks, one of the PL parliamentarians who countered Valdemar’s speech was state deputy Márcio Gualberto, who said “never” supporting Paes. “I lose my head, but I don’t miss the judgment,” he wrote.
The PL plans to launch two Senate candidacies in Rio, with Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) vying for reelection and having the possible company of Governor Claudio Castro on the plate. There is an impasse in the candidacy for the government, but the party was talking about an alliance with the president of Alerj, Rodrigo Bacellar (Union), rival of Paes.
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In addition to the discomfort in Rio, Valdemar generated friction with Eduardo Bolsonaro in reiterating that he wanted to see him candidate for the Senate in 2026, and suggest that he harms his father as he lived in the US in a presidential candidacy. To the globe, Eduardo called Valdemar’s speech “Canalhice” and charged an apology. The leader reacted by saying that “Canalhice is cursing his own father”, alluding to messages from the deputy found by the Federal Police on the former president’s cell phone.
