Brazil elections: Flavio Bolsonaro declares double the wealth of Lula

The ultra-conservative candidate in Brazil's presidential elections, Flavio Bolsonaro, has declared a fortune that doubles that of his main opponent, the current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. This is what emerged from the presentations of the declarations of assets at the Electoral Tribunal whose deadline was set for this Saturday, 24 hours after the official start of the electoral campaign in view of the October polls.

The senator of the Liberal Party and son of former president Bolsonaro declared a total net worth of 8.2 million de Reales (around 1.3 million euros), a figure that marks an increase of 370% compared to the value declared in 2018, the year of his election to the federal Senate. The increase is almost entirely due to the acquisition of a house in Brasilia valued at 6.2 million Reales (around 1 million euros).

Lula, who is aiming for a third re-election, has instead declared a total net worth of 4.8 million Reales (around 800 thousand euros), a value that represents a decrease of 35.7% compared to the 7.4 million Reales declared in 2022. The candidate for the Workers' Party (Pt) and the Juntos pelo Brasil (Jpb) coalition has seen the amounts held in private pension funds (Vgbl) decrease in this period, dropping from 5.6 to 3.3 million Reales.

The greatest declared wealth of all is that of the candidate of the center Avante party, the psychiatrist and writer Augusto Cury, author of numerous self-help bestsellers, who declares 242 million reals, (over 40 million euros). This is a value 7,000 times higher than the 33,000 reales (5,500 euros) declared by Samara Martins, of the left-wing Popular Unity (UP) party, the most modest assets of all the candidates.

The latest polls see Lula as the favorite over Bolsonaro, with 38 and 31% of the preferences respectively in the first round, and 43 and 40% in the second round.