On the eve of the first meeting between Jair Bolsonaro and Tarcísio de Freitas after the former president’s arrest, senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) stated that the governor of São Paulo will hear a direct message during the visit: the presidential contest in 2026 is ruled out and re-election in São Paulo is treated as a central piece of the national strategy to defeat the PT.
Flávio has reiterated that his candidacy for Palácio do Planalto will be maintained, even though sectors of the right argue that Tarcísio is a name with more electoral weight to face President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
— Tarcísio will hear from Bolsonaro that he is doing a great job as governor of São Paulo and that his re-election is fundamental to the national strategy of defeating the PT. Presidential elections are ruled out for him — Flávio told GLOBO.
The senator added that the visit will be mainly of a personal nature and that “Tarcísio really likes Bolsonaro and always asks how he is”.
The governor’s visit was authorized this Tuesday by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, rapporteur of the case at the STF. The meeting will take place next Thursday and will be the first between the two since Bolsonaro was preventively arrested at the end of November and subsequently served his sentence.
It will also be the first conversation since the former president nominated Flávio as a pre-candidate for Planalto, in December — a choice that, in the assessment of allies, did not pacify the succession.
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Amid suspicions about a possible desire to be a candidate for president, Tarcísio publicly reiterated that he will support Flávio and made nods to Bolsonarism. In recent days, the governor sought out STF ministers in defense of house arrest for Bolsonaro, an articulation described by allies as an attempt to preserve a direct channel with the nucleus that still influences decisions and, at the same time, maintain the bond with the godfather amid the vacuum created by the prison.
The request for the meeting was presented on Monday by Bolsonaro’s defense, who has been detained since last Thursday in the 19th Battalion of the Military Police of the Federal District (PM-DF), known as “Papudinha”. By determination of the STF, all visits to the former president require authorization from the rapporteur.
