Stronger polls buy Flavio Bolsonaro time on economic team as Brazil race heats up

BRASILIA, April 1 (Reuters) - Rising public support for Brazilian opposition Senator Flavio Bolsonaro’s presidential run has allowed him to put off naming key economic advisers, his aides say, even as right-wing rivals enter the field ahead of an October election.

Since announcing ​his candidacy last year, the senator has spent much of his time traveling overseas to meet conservative allies, or ‌visiting with his father, ex-President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a sentence in Brasilia for a failed coup plot.

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Yet the 44-year-old has risen to draw even with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in opinion polls simulating a likely matchup, as the 80-year-old leftist leader grapples with a cooling economy and a banking scandal rattling Brasilia.

Two ​sources close to the senator said the momentum he has gained while signaling a platform broadly in line with his father’s ​approach should give him more breathing room to draft advisers and craft proposals to cement a winning ⁠coalition.

If the trend continues, the rollout of his economic team, which had been slated for May, could be delayed further, one of the ​sources said. In December, when Bolsonaro was first scrambling to reassure business, an aide suggested he could present his economic program by February.

It is ​a sharp contrast with the 2018 campaign run by the elder Bolsonaro, then a backbench congressman, who tapped future Economy Minister Paulo Guedes as his all-purpose economic guru nearly a year before the election to assuage nervous investors.

Senator Bolsonaro’s more cagey approach so far will face a fresh test as other right-wing parties ​launch their candidates. Brazil’s Social Democratic Party this week tapped Ronaldo Caiado, governor of Goias state, and Minas Gerais Governor Romeu Zema is ​running for the Novo Party.

“It will be a turbulent campaign,” said Carlos Melo, a political scientist at Insper in Sao Paulo, regarding the more crowded ‌conservative field, ⁠while noting that the governors face long odds of overtaking Bolsonaro.

On Monday, Caiado made a direct appeal to supporters of Jair Bolsonaro by pledging a broad amnesty to those convicted for links to a 2023 coup plot, including the former president, who is now serving his sentence at home due to health issues.

Zema told Reuters he will leverage his executive track record in Minas Gerais and his clean record in ​a country plagued by corruption scandals ​to offer voters an alternative ⁠on the right, playing down the uphill climb he faces in early polls.

“All political campaigns are somewhat unpredictable,” Zema said.

Flavio Bolsonaro, who was a Rio de Janeiro state lawmaker before his father’s 2018 campaign helped ​him win a Senate seat, has offered few details of his economic proposals, promising to cut ​taxes and spending ⁠while improving the business environment.

His advisers said the momentum in the polls should help draw more interest from potential cabinet members.

Sources close to Bolsonaro said his campaign has made informal contact with potential advisers including former Treasury Secretary Mansueto Almeida, now at BTG Pactual, and former central bank governor ⁠Roberto Campos ​Neto, now vice chairman at digital bank Nubank (NU.N), opens new tab.

Both worked in the 2019-2022 Bolsonaro administration.

At ​a conference in Boston over the weekend, Almeida said he remains in the private sector and has not been approached by any candidate. Campos Neto did not respond ​to a request for comment.

Reporting by Marcela Ayres and Ricardo Brito in Brasilia, Luciana Magalhaes in Sao Paulo Editing by Brad Haynes and Alistair Bell

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Ricardo Brito

Thomson Reuters

Ricardo Brito has covered Brazilian politics for over two decades, including five presidential elections, an impeachment, and Car Wash, one of the world’s largest corruption scandals. Brito joined Reuters in 2017, covering politics, courts, offenses, Indigenous communities, and the environment. Recently, he has focused on investigations into the alleged attempted coup against Brazilian democracy in 2022 and crime in the Amazon rainforest. He won two well-known Brazilian awards, Abril (2008) and Estadao (2015), and was a finalist for ‘Breaking News of the Year’ in 2022 for coverage of Brazil’s presidential bid. He once dreamed of being a basketball star, but has since resigned to being a Lakers fan.

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