{"id":40663,"date":"2026-04-04T06:16:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T06:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=40663"},"modified":"2026-04-04T06:16:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T06:16:23","slug":"its-not-just-flavio-is-surname-dropping-son-downplaying-bolsonaro-connection-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=40663","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s not just Fl\u00e1vio\u2019: is surname-dropping son downplaying Bolsonaro connection? | Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"


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H<\/span>e possesses one of the most famous family names in Latin American politics. But when the Brazilian senator took to the stage at a conservative conference in Grapevine, Texas, last weekend it was only his forename that was on people\u2019s lips.<\/p>\n

\u201cFl\u00e1vio! Fl\u00e1vio! Fl\u00e1vio!\u201d the audience shouted<\/a> as the 44-year-old politician announced he would run for president in order to fight the \u201cradical environmental and woke\u201d agendas he claims have made Brazil awful again.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me look you in the eyes and tell you\u200b: we will win\u200b,\u201d the surname-less senator said in halting\u200b English, read from a teleprompter machine.<\/p>\n

The Fl\u00e1vio in question is Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro, the oldest son of the disgraced former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest after receiving a 27-year jail sentence<\/a> for trying to overturn the result of the 2022 election.<\/p>\n

As the younger Bolsonaro seeks to catapult his family back to the pinnacle of Brazilian politics in this year\u2019s contest, many believe he is intentionally downplaying his parentage in an attempt to shake off the baggage of a name many associate with anti-democratic tendencies and a coronavirus catastrophe<\/a> that killed hundreds of thousands of people.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas last week.<\/span> Photograph: Daniel Cole\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Political analysts have detected a deliberate strategy<\/a> to reposition the rightwing politician in voters\u2019 minds by casting him as a supposedly moderate \u201cFl\u00e1vio\u201d, rather than a key member of the Bolsonaro clan.<\/p>\n

A campaign jingle<\/a> played at one recent rally and broadcast on the candidate\u2019s social networks refers to Bolsonaro\u2019s firstborn as simply \u201cZero Um\u201d (Number One) and Fl\u00e1vio, without citing his family name.<\/p>\n

Controversially, many Brazilian newspapers have adopted the same style, repeatedly calling the politician only \u201cFl\u00e1vio\u201d in headlines \u2013 something leftwing opponents consider a cynical attempt to camouflage the politician\u2019s hard-right roots.<\/p>\n

One social media satirist, the journalist Gilberto Porcidonio, took a poke at the Bolsonarian marketing strategy on Threads, joking:<\/p>\n

\u2013 Are you going to vote for Fl\u00e1vio?<\/p>\n

\u2013 Which Fl\u00e1vio?<\/p>\n

\u2013 The one whose surname they got rid of to make him electable!<\/p>\n

Fabiana Moraes, a columnist for Intercept Brasil who wrote recently about Bolsonaro\u2019s disappearing last name<\/a>, believed the move was designed to help Bolsonaro sidestep the hugely negative views millions of Brazilians still hold of his father.<\/p>\n

Moraes saw many reasons for that dislike, including Jair Bolsonaro\u2019s misogyny and the failed coup he plotted after losing 2022\u2019s election to his leftwing rival Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva<\/a>. But perhaps the biggest cause was Jair Bolsonaro\u2019s bungled response to coronavirus<\/a>, which killed more than 800,000 Brazilians, and his delay in buying vaccines.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrazil was exposed to such an unthinkable level of suffering [during Covid] \u2026 and I think this still reverberates,\u201d Moraes said.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>A mural in S\u00e3o Paulo in June 2020 depicting Jair Bolsonaro and a figure representing Covid-19 pulling a rope against health workers with the question \u2018Which side of the rope are you on?\u2019.<\/span> Photograph: Nelson Almeida\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro has not entirely abandoned his surname, which many conservatives still revere. Jair Bolsonaro<\/a> won 58m votes in the 2022 election, losing to Lula by only 2m. Polls suggest the 2026 vote could be similarly close.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unquestionable that [this surname] is still a real asset \u2013 but at the same time it\u2019s also the mirror opposite,\u201d said Moraes, who believed the tactic was aimed at attracting voters who were neither progressives, nor diehard Bolsonaro fans.<\/p>\n

Moraes feared Brazil\u2019s version of Wall Street, Faria Lima, and parts of the mainstream media had already bought into Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro\u2019s attempt to portray himself as a moderate, by playing down his roots and even using gender-neutral language<\/a> in contrast to his father\u2019s notorious homophobia<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

She was unconvinced by claims newspaper editors were using \u201cFl\u00e1vio\u201d in their headlines because it was three letters shorter than Bolsonaro. \u201cJair is much shorter than Fl\u00e1vio and that wasn\u2019t the name that appeared in the headlines [when he was president], was it?\u201d Moraes said.<\/p>\n

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Supporters of President Lula, whom Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro looks set to challenge in October\u2019s vote, have cottoned on to the rightwinger\u2019s rebranding effort. In recent days, they have set about hammering home the candidate\u2019s association with what many see as his family\u2019s toxic name.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro, not just Fl\u00e1vio. He must carry the surname of the dirtiest family in Brazil,\u201d the congresswoman Luizianne Lins wrote on X.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with the news website Metr\u00f3poles, the president of Lula\u2019s Workers\u2019 party (PT), Edinho Silva, urged voters to remember what life was like when the father of the politician formerly known as Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro held power.<\/p>\n

\u201cFl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro is a representative of the Bolsonaro family \u2026 We cannot forget what Brazil was like when it was governed by the Bolsonaro family \u2026 [or] what Brazil was like when it was left to fend for itself during the pandemic because of a marketing campaign,\u201d Silva said.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>A supporter of Jair Bolsonaro protests after he began serving a 27-year prison sentence for a coup plot against his successor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in Brasilia in November 2025.<\/span> Photograph: Jorge Silva\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Moraes believed Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro\u2019s reinvention was also designed to conceal numerous skeletons in his own closet, including longstanding corruption allegations<\/a> and well-documented ties to a police officer turned hitman<\/a> called Adriano Magalh\u00e3es da N\u00f3brega, and other members of Rio\u2019s paramilitary underworld.<\/p>\n

In 2005, when Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro was a state legislator, he awarded N\u00f3brega a medal<\/a> while he was in prison, and employed N\u00f3brega\u2019s wife and mother. N\u00f3brega, who was killed by police in 2020, was alleged to have run what the Rio newspaper O Globo called<\/a> the city\u2019s \u201cmost lethal and secretive phalanx of hired guns\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bolsonaro paid a similar tribute <\/a>to Ronald Pereira, a police officer and paramilitary recently jailed for 56 years<\/a> for involvement in the 2018 assassination of the leftwing politician Marielle Franco.<\/p>\n

Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied corruption and links to criminal groups but his rivals are expected to exploit such allegations in the six months remaining before the election.<\/p>\n

Bolsonaro\u2019s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) gathering in Texas<\/a> \u2013 in which he questioned Brazil\u2019s voting system and called for foreign pressure to ensure a \u201cfree and fair\u201d vote \u2013 appears to have undermined his rebranding push.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike father, like son \u2026 Bolsonarista coup-mongering seems to be genetic,\u201d the conservative Estado de S\u00e3o Paulo complained<\/a> in an editorial, although on five occasions the newspaper referred to its subject by his first name.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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