It showed that his candidacy is becoming a fait accompli within the right-wing electorate. His numbers are still worse than Tarcísio’s, but they have improved. The number of voters who think Jair was wrong to nominate him is still high, but it has fallen.
There is still little to win against Lula, but Flávio is hopeful that the growth trend will continue. It’s a risky bet.
Firstly, because Tarcísio remains a candidate.
Last week, the first lady posted a message saying that Brazil (and not São Paulo) needs “a new CEO, my husband.” “liked” the message. Bolsonaristas suspect that Tarcísio sent the first lady to post and arranged with Michelle to show support.
If Tarcísio is conspiring with Michelle, it is not to be a candidate for the Government of São Paulo. It even has a following of opinion makers who will have no qualms about saying that Flávio’s candidacy proves that Tarcísio was never a true Bolsonarist. They’re going to pretend they didn’t see that it was Jair who rejected Tarcísio, and not the other way around. And they will try to rebrand Michelle as a moderate even if she remains married to Papuda’s new guest. I won’t be surprised if some columnist insinuates that their marriage is open, look, Jair and Michelle are even living in separate places.
Secondly, Flávio Bolsonaro needs to deal with the fact that he is a very bad candidate.
To this day, we don’t really know why the scandal involving Flávio, Jair and Michelle, with the family of the head of the Crime Office, only appeared after the 2018 presidential election. Now imagine what the campaign that year would have been like if we had known about it or if we had discovered that he had bought a mansion with cash, like Flávio did.
What if the population discovers, in addition, that Flávio got rid of the accusations thanks to Dias Toffoli, the one who is in the news? And that, in gratitude to the STF, Flávio wrote in this Sheet that the STF had no alternative, given Sergio Moro’s legal incompetence, other than to release Lula (, February 21, 2022)?
Here I can already imagine Flávio defending himself: “OK, I’m an idiot who faints in debates, but, until then, Tarcísio is also rubbish”. I have nothing to object to the senator.
The current governor of São Paulo only stood out for his competence in the Bolsonaro government because, for Bolsonaro supporters, CEO means Carluxo, Eduardo and Olavo: in this environment, anyone stands out. Tarcísio could, yes, have created an image of a moderate that corresponded to reality, but he was cowardly and submissive to Jair in recent years. He should not acquire more courage if he starts to depend politically on the support of the subject’s wife.
In short, Tarcísio’s shadow makes it difficult for Flávio to take off, which, in any case, is already a pretty sluggish plane.
We are in this because the Brazilian right has not yet managed to get out of the hole it got into in 2018. Now we have to wait and see which of the two the usual group will lie about being moderate at the end of the year.
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