📣 The Bolsonaro who wasn't there

The Liberal Party's Saturday convention opened with a speech from a man who was not in the room and is legally barred from speaking at all. An avatar of Jair Bolsonaro, generated by artificial intelligence, told delegates he was "imprisoned and silenced by an arbitrary decision," that "no prison will silence the feeling of hope" his movement awakened, and asked them to receive Flávio Bolsonaro "with open arms" as the party's presidential candidate. 

The former president is serving 27 years and three months for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election, under house arrest in Brasília.

By Sunday, the federation headed by the Workers' Party (PT) had asked the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) to…

Don’t miss out! Upgrade to unlock full access. The process takes only seconds with Apple Pay or Stripe. Become a member.

We’re here for readers who want to truly understand Brazil and Latin America — a region too often ignored or misrepresented by the international media.

Since 2017, our reporting has been powered by paid subscribers. They’re the reason we can keep a full-time team of journalists across Brazil and Argentina, delivering sharp, independent coverage every day.

If you value our work, subscribing is the best way to keep it going — and growing.

You're already a subscriber — which means you've made a choice. You decided that understanding Brazil, accurately and ahead of the headlines, was worth paying for. Thank you. That choice is the reason we exist.

Every contribution above your subscription goes directly into journalism: the reporters and editors on the ground in São Paulo, Brasília, and Rio who file what parachute correspondents and recycled-wire intelligence simply can't. It's the difference between covering 2026 and covering it the way it deserves to be covered.

If The Brazilian Report has earned a place in how you read the country, consider giving beyond what you already pay. Whatever the amount, it funds the work — and it keeps it independent.