Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro confirmed his son Flavio's pre-candidacy to the 2026 presidency in an official letter, Brazilian media reported on Thursday.
"Given this scenario of injustice and with the commitment of not permitting that the people's will be silenced, I have decided to indict Flávio Bolsonaro as a pre-candidate to the Republic's Presidency in 2026," the letter said.
Flávio Bolsonaro, a Brazilian senator, read his father's letter at DF Star Hospital as official confirmation of his candidacy.
The ex-president is currently admitted to a hospital in Brasilia, waiting to undergo hernia correction surgery, which should be finished today, according to Brazilian media.
After reading his father's letter, the senator said that Jair Bolsonaro wrote the document at the Federal Police Superintendency in Brasilia on Tuesday and that the former president would have signed it on Thursday.
Flavio Bolsonaro had originally announced that he’d been chosen by his father to be his party's candidate for the presidency in 2026 at the start of December. "It's with great responsibility that I confirm the biggest moral and political Brazilian leadership, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, of conferring me the mission of giving continuity to our Nation project."
Brazilian ex-president faces closed regime sentence
The former Brazilian president is currently waiting to undergo hernia correction surgery in a hospital in Brasilia, according to Brazilian media.
At the moment, the ex-president is serving his sentence in a closed regime prison for an attempted coup d'état.
In November, Brazil's federal police took the ex-president into custody due to flight risk after he took a soldering iron to his ankle monitor, ending months of house arrest as he appeals his conviction for plotting a coup, Reuters reported.