Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro decried what he characterized as a prevailing culture of “political persecution” within the nation’s government, which he said was particularly directed against conservatives.

“Brazil is not going through an easy moment. We don’t have a healthy democracy in our country,” Bolsonaro, son of the embattled former president of Brazil, told EpochTV’s Jan Jekeliek in an interview. “There is a lot of political persecution, especially against those on the right, symbolized by President Jair Bolsonaro, the greatest victim of this lawfare.”

The elder Bolsonaro, who has long drawn comparisons to U.S. President Donald Trump, has been convicted on a slate of charges stemming from the aftermath of that country’s 2022 election, in which sitting Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula, defeated him.

“President Bolsonaro’s conviction was a political one,” Bolsonaro said. “And also my brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, is living in the U.S., and he can’t come back to Brazil or he, too, will be persecuted, possibly even detained, by these people who insist on deploying lawfare in the judicial branch.”

On Jan. 8, 2023, supporters of Jair Bolsonaro attacked several government buildings in Brazil, including the Supreme Court, Congress, and the presidential palace. Jair Bolsonaro, who was staying in Kissimmee, Florida, at the time to avoid potential legal issues in Brazil, condemned these attacks the following day in an online statement.

Since then, Jair Bolsonaro has been convicted of participating in and helping to orchestrate an attempted coup. Allegedly, the plot included a plan to poison Lula.

He spent some of his 27-year sentence in prison prior to his recent release to house arrest on health grounds.

Flávio Bolsonaro told Jekeliek that his father, 71, has been in poor health since returning home. He said his father’s health “was never the same” after he was stabbed by “a hard-left militant” in 2018 while on the campaign trail.

“He was convicted not because of corruption, money laundering, or violent crime,” he said. “He was convicted for standing up for truth and not kowtowing to a system that persecuted and interfered with his administration.”

As a result of his conviction for an attempted coup, the elder Bolsonaro is prohibited from running for president until 2030.

“Given he is now barred from running for president, he has named me as the candidate,” the younger Bolsonaro said of his father.

Today, the younger Bolsonaro, 44, serves as a Brazilian senator, and told Jekeliek he had been in politics for 23 years before this year’s presidential bid.

Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, greets a supporter as he leaves the Federal Police headquarters, where his father is being held, in Brasilia on Dec, 9, 2025. (Ton MOLINA/AFP)

Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro wait for him to be discharged from DF Star hospital in Brasilia with a sign reading "Freedom for Bolsonaro. Amnesty now! Wake up Brazil" on March 27, 2026. (Sergio Lima/AFP)

Lula has consistently denied Jair Bolsonaro’s claims that the coup conviction against him is political persecution, saying that the issue is an internal matter being handled by the nation’s judicial system.

Flávio Bolsonaro described the Lula administration as “disastrous,” accusing Lula of “looking the other way” on violent criminals and refusing to classify Brazilian cartels as terrorist organizations, a move that has been undertaken by Trump.

Bolsonaro indicated that if elected, he would move to do so and would seek to have Brazil involved in Trump’s “Shield of the Americas” initiative to combat crime and drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere.

Polls currently show a tight race between Bolsonaro and Lula, with Lula ahead. The election is scheduled for Oct. 4.

In a poll conducted by Atlas Intel between March 18 and March 23, Lula led with 45.9 percent—nearly six points ahead of Bolsonaro, who sat at 40.1 percent. A poll by Quaest conducted between March 6 and March 9 found Lula leading by seven percentage points, with 37 percent to Bolsonaro’s 30 percent.

Nevertheless, Bolsonaro told Jekeliek he’s not worried, saying that polls capture a “snapshot in time” and that they “consistently [show] a trend of growth” in favor of his bid.

He predicted Lula would no longer be president by 2027 and that the nation’s Senate would be controlled by conservatives.

“I think this will change Brazil’s political climate and end the lawfare,” he said.

Bolsonaro said that securing a conservative majority in the Senate would also determine whether or not the upper house would impeach Brazil’s Supreme Court justices.

“As it now stands, justices who persecute people end up staying in office,” Bolsonaro said.

He vowed that if elected, he would return the country to its constitutional norms and back toward “free speech and free press.”