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Jailed banker ties roil Flavio Bolsonaro’s Brazil presidential hopes

Brazil’s right-wing presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro was riding high in the polls until the news broke of his ties to a banker jailed over a…

By Samantha Johnson / May 21, 2026

Brazil’s right-wing presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro was riding high in the polls until the news broke of his ties to a banker jailed over a multimillion-dollar fraud scandal.

The 45-year-old senator had been polling neck-and-neck with 80-year-old President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is expected to seek a fourth term in presidential elections in October.

But a change may be under way following the publication of an audio recording by investigative outlet The Intercept in which Bolsonaro asked disgraced banker Daniel Vorcaro to finance a film he was making about his father, former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.

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Polls had projected a Bolsonaro-Lula tie in the second round, giving a slight advantage to the right-wing hopeful.

Now, his ratings appear to have dwindled, with one poll putting the right-wing candidate seven points behind leftist Lula.

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Vorcaro was the major shareholder in the small private Master Bank that collapsed last year, sparking a major fraud investigation that has rattled the highest echelons of power in Latin America’s largest economy.

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