Jair Bolsonaro Backs Son’s Brazil Presidential Bid, Undergoes Hernia Surgery
SAO PAULO, Dec 25 (Reuters) – Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro endorsed his son Flavio’s 2026 presidential bid on Thursday, he said from the hospital where he underwent a planned hernia surgery that doctors said went smoothly.
Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes authorized Bolsonaro to leave prison for surgery, where he is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup. The officer was ordered to stay outside his room, where computers and cell phones were prohibited.
Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro, 44, said he wants to cement his father’s conservative legacy in the Oct. 4 election in which he will try to unseat leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
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“With the commitment not to allow the will of the people to be silenced, I decide to nominate Flavio Bolsonaro as the 2026 presidential primary candidate,” Jair Bolsonaro said in the letter read by Flavio in front of a hospital in the city of Brasilia, where his father was treated.
The 70-year-old former leader has faced health problems since surviving a near-fatal stabbing during the 2018 election campaign and has undergone more than half a dozen abdominal surgeries over the years.
Thursday’s operation, which lasted about three hours, was described by his doctor, Claudio Birolini, as expected and uneventful. Bolsonaro, who is expected to stay in the hospital for five to seven days, was already in his room and awake, the doctor told reporters.
The former president may also undergo a separate medical procedure aimed at his recurring hiccups during his hospital stay, according to Birolini and physician Brasil Ramos Caiado. They said a decision on this could be made on Monday after a re-evaluation of his medical condition.
The former president, who was considered a flight risk following his conviction, was taken into custody in late November and began serving his 27-year sentence three days later.
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Flavio Bolsonaro confirmed this month that he supports his father’s 2026 presidential bid; This shook the markets, which expected the former president to choose a more experienced candidate such as São Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas.
The cancellation of an interview scheduled for Tuesday, when Jair Bolsonaro was expected to formalize the endorsement, helped the real strengthen about 1% against the dollar.
(Reporting by Andre Romani in Sao Paulo and Rodrigo Viga Gaier in Rio de Janeiro; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Howard Goller)
