Bolsonaro Heir Plays Power Games From Exile in the US

Flávio Bolsonaro voted by remote link from the United States on Thursday against a fiscal adjustment bill, then told Reuters a day later he's ready to run for president again if a new election emerges. The senator lost Brazil's presidential runoff to Lula on Sunday 25 October 2026, 19 days ago. He left the country with a Supreme Federal Court order to hand over his passport, issued over money-laundering investigations and a flight risk, according to Reuters. Now he's working the phones and the press from abroad, angling for round two.

The Senate passed the main text of the bill 45 to 31. The government estimates it will improve the 2027 primary result, the budget balance before debt interest, by R$45.1 to R$56.1 billion, about US$8.0 to US$9.9 billion. Contested points go to a vote Tuesday, 17 November, and then the bill heads to the Chamber of Deputies. Bolsonaro explained his no vote on X: "I voted against cuts in health and education to give the current government a chance to fulfil its campaign promises." This is the same man whose own campaign promised a "tesouraço," a sweeping government clean-up that Lula and other opponents tied to cuts in social programmes.

Who Has the Power

The fight now is over who controls the machinery. Hugo Motta, a Republicanos deputy from Paraíba, is speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, the person who controls the agenda and decides which bills get a vote. He wants re-election when the new Congress starts in February 2027. On a live stream on 12 November, Bolsonaro said: "I would never support Motta's re-election for everything he did not deliver." He said Motta promised amnesty and "did not deliver," then came with the "dosimetria" bill, which cuts prison terms of people convicted over the attacks of 8 January 2023.

The Liberal Party will hold 121 seats in the next Chamber, the biggest bench. Its deputies are split on whether to back Motta or field their own candidate. No decision has been taken. Notice what's being haggled over: not health clinics, not schools, but who gets to hold the gavel and who gets to pardon whom.

The Family Business

The Liberal Party is the party of Flávio's father, Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for a coup plot, Reuters reported. Before leaving Brazil, Flávio alleged without evidence that the election was fraudulent, Reuters wrote. The electoral court declared Lula the winner by over 4 million votes. Asked about his own legal challenges, he conceded: "If you ask me whether I think they'll go anywhere, I doubt it."

He still wants the title. Asked whether he sees himself as president-elect, he told The New York Times, as A Tarde reported on 5 November: "To millions of Brazilians, that's who I am." Reuters reported that a letter written after he reached the United States first called him president-elect and was later changed to "leader." He told Reuters the next race could come "sooner than expected" and that "If a new electoral race emerges, I am ready to return." No new presidential election is scheduled. The next one is October 2030. He hasn't said how one could come sooner, but he predicts economic trouble will cut short Lula's fourth term: "Brazil is going to go broke."

Washington's Open Door

President Donald Trump said on 31 October that the senator could stay in the United States as long as he wants, according to Reuters. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the same day that Washington was not directly involved in his departure. Bolsonaro spoke to Reuters between meetings to sort out his immigration status and declined to say with whom he was meeting. A man dodging a court's passport order gets a welcome from one government while seeking power over another.

A Quaest poll found 62% of Brazilians disapprove of his leaving the country after the runoff. Lula and others call him a runaway. He called that "a pejorative way of trying to attack me."

The Betting Window

Polymarket, a prediction market, priced his return to Brazil at 0.45% by 30 November, 4.1% by 31 December 2026, 11.5% by 31 March 2027, 17.5% by 30 June 2027 and 30% by 31 December 2027. Just US$33,499 has been traded. Whether Motta wins, whether the Chamber passes the bill and what the Liberal Party decides are all unknown. What's known is that the people who'll live with the cuts, or the amnesties, or the next campaign, aren't the ones in the room.