The decision was taken after a meeting between Mr Bolsonaro and Liberal Party leader Valdemar Costa Neto in the capital Brasilia.
After two years without a political party, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro sealed a deal with the centrist Liberal Party to back the 2022 re-election bid, according to a party statement.
The decision was taken after a meeting between Mr Bolsonaro and Liberal Party leader Valdemar Costa Nato in the capital Brasilia, the statement said on Wednesday. The formal nomination of the President to the ranks of the party will take place on November 22.
Mr Bolsonaro intends to assist him in fighting his nemesis for the Coalition, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Known universally as “Lula,” da Silva, holds a handsome edge over Bolsonaro in the early polls. Joining one of the parties known to be part of the so-called Centrao group also marks a shift from Mr Bolsonaro’s campaign strategy in 2018, when he sharply criticized his old-school political practices.
“It is very symbolic of how Bolsonaro has begun to play the traditional game of Brazilian politics,” said Mauricio Santoro, a professor of political science at the State University of Rio de Janeiro.
“PL is helping Bolsonaro survive.” The Liberal Party – known by its Spanish initial PL – and other Centrao parties are known for their ideological flexibility and swapping support for government appointments and earmarks. Bolsonaro was affiliated with such parties during most of his seven terms as a federal lawmaker, but cast himself as a political outsider during his 2018 presidential campaign. He vowed not to embrace the horse trade, which benefited embroiled actors and fueled corruption.
Instead, he ran under the banner of the Social Liberal Party, which he left a year after his election victory amid disagreements with the party leadership over funding and regional nominations. He set out to form his own party, but failed to garner enough signatures and has had no political home since then.
Two of Bolsonaro’s ministers told the Associated Press that the president’s decision to join the PL was influenced by his three politician sons, who believe that the party would favor their fathers as governors and congressional allies in next year’s election. sufficient autonomy to choose He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The president’s press office did not respond to a request for comment from the AP confirming Pl’s statement, nor the president’s justification for the decision. Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Bolsonaro said in a radio interview that he had a “99.9 percent chance” of joining PL.
Reports that Bolsonaro was seeking a Centrao party to sponsor his re-election bid had analysts already commenting that he was a complete departure from his pre-establishment stance. As rumors of his deal with the PL intensified this week, a series of comments criticizing party leader Costa Neto were removed from the social media profiles of members of the Bolsonaro family.
Mr Bolsonaro himself has said that Costa Nato was corrupt and a criminal, according to the famous Carlos Melo, a political analyst and professor at Inspar University in So Paulo. In 2012, Costa Neto, who was then a legislator, was convicted of corruption and money laundering in a massive vote-buying scandal that nearly brought down da Silva’s administration. He spent time in jail.
“Bolsonaro has always been associated with a Centrao party, his entire congressional career,” Melo said. “He was elected criticizing Centro, the Workers’ Party, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party, saying he was an outsider. It was a strategy for that election.” Bolsonaro’s inclusion in PL will mark the continuation of his cohabitation with Centrao over the past year. The far-right president has turned to Centrao for political shelter from mounting pressure on his administration, including more than 100 impeachment requests, a Senate inquiry into his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and declining popularity. In August, he appointed a senator from Centrao as his chief-of-staff, sealing his rapprochement with power brokers.
“If you remove the centrao, there is the left,” the president told Jornal da Cidade Online, a small conservative news outlet, on Tuesday. “So where do I go?”
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