Allies of () admit the expectation of timid reactions from supporters at the end of , with the possibility of prison in a closed regime in —to be defined by the minister of the (Supreme Federal Court) . The justification is that the restrictions imposed on the ex-president ended up reducing the numbers on the streets.
Bolsonaro is in , by order of the magistrate, who assessed that he had failed to comply with the ban on using social media. The first embargo on the former president’s defense was from the STF from the 7th to the 14th of this month, and the forecast is that the resources will be considered exhausted this year for the beginning of the sentence.
It will be up to Moraes to define the details of the criminal execution. The former president may remain under house arrest or be transferred to a prison, such as the Papuda penitentiary complex, in Brasília, or to the superintendency of the federal capital.
Allies say that the worst case scenario would be Papuda, but they hope that he will be kept at home, due to his poor health — with bouts of hiccups, vomiting and malaise.
Regardless of Bolsonaro’s fate, those around him admit that they do not project a robust mobilization in reaction to the final sentence. They claim that the escalation of restrictions against the former president, from the confiscation of his passport to house arrest, ended up reducing the importance of starting to serve the sentence among his supporters.
In conversations with Sheetallies such as pastor Silas Malafaia illustrated this argument with the comparison to a frog in a boiling pot. “If you try to put a frog in hot water, it will jump out. But if you put a frog in cold water, turn on the heat slowly, it will boil to death”, said the religious man, organizer of Bolsonarist events in São Paulo.
“Evil is not done all at once. It is done slowly. And then the human being settles down. To get to the point [de dizer] like this, [Bolsonaro] ‘he’s already arrested’. Cowardice is done in a planned way to neutralize the people’s reaction.”
The low supporter movement was already observed with Bolsonaro’s house arrest, when the reactions were only seen on the networks. Then, in September, supporters gathered at one of the former president’s offices, on the night he was sentenced to almost three decades in prison. Only around 40 people were there.
The biggest act, since his home, was the 7th of September in the capitals, especially on Avenida Paulista. But since then, there have been few mobilizations. In Brasília, they defend amnesty.
When arrested, Lula counted on the efforts of the PT and the MST (Landless Rural Workers Movement) to set up a camp and the Lula Livre vigil in Curitiba (every day the participants chanted “good morning” and “good night, president”). Dozens of visits by important figures to the PT member were also organized, followed by press conferences. Nothing similar is being put together by the PL on the eve of Bolsonaro’s recall.
Those around the former president and right-wing politicians cite other reasons to justify the lack of mobilization. Some of them claim that the president of the PL, who is being investigated in the coup plot investigation, has no interest in making efforts, including financial resources, to react to the arrest of his ally.
According to this interpretation, Valdemar could gain more politically with Bolsonaro in prison, given the figure of a martyr in his party, than with the former president released, needing to share the command and decisions of the PL with him.
A more radicalized wing of the party, linked to (PL-SP), sees the leader as a figure from the center and seeks to change the direction of the party. Valdemar, in turn, leaves the final decision to assemble tickets with the former president and complains to allies about the difficulty of campaigning with Bolsonaro in prison.
Another analysis of Bolsonaro’s surroundings is that supporters would be afraid to speak out in the face of progress in investigations and convictions in court.
The disappointment of the more committed Bolsonarista militancy is also cited as an explanation for the timid reaction. The group would not have liked the jokes that the former president made with Moraes during interrogation in June (jokingly, he invited the minister to be his vice-president in the 2026 elections).
According to this reading, when Bolsonaro and his children denied support for any amnesty that did not involve the former president, these voters would also have started to suspect that the family’s priority is to defend itself and its political capital above all else.
A member of the PL told the report that there is fatigue among politicians from the Bolsonarist base due to the clan’s insistence on the amnesty agenda and the resistance to choosing a candidate to run for President next year.
Ineligible, Bolsonaro maintains his name in the dispute, publicly supported by allies and his children. The expectation is that he will announce a successor in January or February 2026, but this deadline has been extended for months.
Politicians who defend the rapid appointment of a successor argue that this would be the main solution for the former president, who would receive a pardon if the chosen one is elected.
For these interlocutors, as the choice of a candidacy is currently banned by the former president’s family, the Bolsonarist right focuses on the issue of amnesty and misses the opportunity to engage more vigorously in issues that could gain broader support, as was the case with the .
