Senator Flavio Bolsonaro's campaign was hit on Friday by the announcement of an investigation into corruption and money laundering against the conservative candidate, less than a month before the presidential election. The eldest son of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) declared that he had “nothing to hide” during a trip to the Amazonian city of Manaus (north).
The 45-year-old senator is neck and neck in the polls with outgoing left-wing president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, seeking a fourth term at age 80, in the likely event of a second round on October 25. A Supreme Court judge authorized in July the opening of a Federal Police investigation targeting the right-wing candidate for possible offenses linked to “financing the production” of the film “Dark Horse”, according to the decision consulted by AFP.
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This still unreleased feature film is a “biopic” about ex-president Bolsonaro, with American actor Jim Caviezel in the lead role. Corruption is a major concern among Brazilian voters ahead of the election. Lula himself was imprisoned for 580 days for corruption in 2018-2019. But his conviction was later overturned, on procedural grounds, and because the judge was considered biased.
The association of the left with corruption has always been one of the main standards of the Brazilian conservative camp, playing a decisive role in the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018. On Friday, the lifting of the secrecy of the investigation into a major financial scandal showed that his eldest son has in turn entered the crosshairs of justice.
Pressures
“The impact of the corruption scandals is much stronger for Lula's campaign than for that of Flavio Bolsonaro, because they accentuate the rejection of the Workers' Party” of the outgoing president, Mayra Goulart, political scientist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, commented to AFP. But if the evidence against Flavio Bolsonaro accumulates as the election approaches, it could influence “the decision of undecided voters,” she adds. The cost of “Dark Horse” exceeds the total of “I’m Still Here” and “The Secret Agent,” the last two Brazilian films nominated for Oscars, according to local press.
Little information has leaked about the content of the film, other than that it presents Jair Bolsonaro as someone who “fought the system,” as the trailer shows. In May, the eldest son of the former head of state admitted to having requested and obtained several million dollars for this film from banker Daniel Vorcaro, currently incarcerated for a vast bank fraud scandal. “The film is completely legal,” Flavio Bolsonaro said on Friday, referring to “private financing”. Daniel Vorcaro, boss of Banco Master, had built up a vast network in power circles before his establishment was liquidated for having proved insolvent, having accumulated more than six billion euros in debt.
The police are trying to find out if the banker's funds were in fact used to finance another son of Jair Bolsonaro, Eduardo, established in the United States and convicted in Brazil for having exerted pressure on the justice system at the time of his father's trial, a source from the Supreme Court explained to AFP. During this trial, the ex-president was sentenced a year ago to 27 years in prison for an attempted coup against Lula in 2022. He is currently serving his sentence at home for health reasons.
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Supreme Court in crisis
The investigation targeting Flavio Bolsonaro was authorized by Judge André Mendonça, his father's former Minister of Justice, who appointed him to the Supreme Court. Brazil's highest court is currently going through an unprecedented crisis, notably pitting Judge Mendonça and his colleagues Alexandre de Moraes and Flavio Dino, himself a former Lula Minister of Justice, against each other.
This crisis led briefly to the suspension of the director of the Federal Police, who was finally reinstated in his functions. In an attempt to end the crisis, the President of the Court, Edson Fachin, asked Judge Mendonça to lift the secrecy of the investigation in the Master case, which the magistrate did partially. This decision made it possible to learn on Friday that the police are investigating Flavio Bolsonaro.
