Although the hard core of the Bolsonaro clan is clearly manly, it also includes women, the three with whom the president of Brazil has shared his life, the mothers of his children. For different reasons, they are also news. The current wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, 38, a former model turned sign interpreter, has starred in the viral phenomenon of the week in Brazil on account of money of suspicious origin she received. The second woman, Cristina del Valle, a 53-year-old lawyer, has been affected by the same case of embezzlement of public funds. And the first, Rogeria, 65 years old and mother of the president's three eldest children, the three professional politicians with several legislatures behind her back, is considering running for the next municipal elections to be a councilor again in Rio de Janeiro.
Together they make up a complex family tree, a multi-branched family whose motto could be "politics (or power) above all else", paraphrasing their government motto, "Brazil above all, God above all". The ties - also the labor and political ones - survive the emotional ruptures. Since he first married in 1978, Jair Bolsonaro has never spent less than a year single.
He has formed one of those increasingly common families but that has little to do with the classic family proclaimed by the evangelical Churches that have given him so many joys in the form of vows. Five children from three marriages, exactly like his admired Donald Trump.
His third wife is a discreet woman almost three decades younger than him, an evangelical, mother of his only daughter, Laura. The girl with whom this macho president drools. They met in Congress when she was secretary to another deputy. Sometimes she participates in some governmental act of social profile or accompanies her husband, but always in the background. She rarely speaks in public. She was seen with a mask before it was mandatory, nothing to do with him, always reluctant. And like him and several ministers, the coronavirus has just passed without serious consequences.
An explicit threat from Bolsonaro to a journalist this week turned on him like a boomerang, although it was his wife who he placed under the spotlight. It turns out that last Sunday a reporter asked the Brazilian president about suspicious transfers of a family friend investigated for corruption and he responded with a phrase inappropriate for a head of state but that does not clash with his history of outbursts: “I want to to split your face with fists ”. In the following hours, a million tweeters bombarded him with the question that made him nervous and left unanswered: "President @JairBolsonaro, why did your wife Michelle receive 89,000 reais from Fabricio Queiroz?" That money ($ 16,000, 13,000 euros) was entered into the accounts of the first lady as police have discovered. The question remains unanswered. Michelle hasn't opened her mouth either.
It is a convoluted case, which in Brazil is not uncommon. The police suspect that the president's eldest son, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, managed with Queiroz, his man for everything, a system to fraudulently keep part of the salaries of his cabinet advisers. And that is where the connection appears with the second wife of Bolsonaro father, Renan's mother, the only male child who is not in politics. At 22, he studies Law. Although they separated more than a decade ago, Cristina del Valle - who does not use the last name of her ex - placed nine of her relatives as employees in the parliamentary offices of Flavio and his brother Carlos, relatives who are now being investigated by the police for handing over part of their salaries to the boss in a practice that in Brazil even has a name, rachadinha.
Bolsonaro Sr. has managed to maintain good relations with his ex-wives. The two have come out to defend him when the occasion required it and asked for a vote for him. Nor should it come as a surprise whether you look at the Bolsonaro more as a brand or as a company.
The president was a military man before embarking on a long and insignificant career as a deputy while he was putting his offspring in politics. The play worked. He has each one placed in a Chamber. Flavio, 39, is a senator, the weak side of a family that made the fight against corruption its great political banner. Carlos, 37, is a councilor. And Eduardo, 36, federal deputy. Their father defends them tooth and nail.
They say that Bolsonaro has more instinct than intelligence. The fact is that after a year and a half in power, with a history full of various scandals, investigated by the Supreme Court, etc., his popularity is higher than ever. Scruples are certainly not too much for him. When he separated from Rogeria - the first woman, a decade of marriage - Bolsonaro made Carlos, then only 17 years old, stand against her in the municipal elections so that she would not be reelected. The kid got three times more votes than his mother and got the seat, which he still holds; He is going for his fourth term. Now she aspires to win back that seat in Rio de Janeiro in the November municipal elections. Her plans to go number two to the mayor, an evangelical pastor, go cold, but who knows, there are still three months left.
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