Brazil: Two days before the deadline, Bolsonaro's party cannot register Flávio as candidate

Two days before the deadline, Brazil's Liberal Party failed to register Senator Flávio Bolsonaro's presidential candidacy with the Superior Electoral Court. The registration deadline of Saturday at 7pm was fast approaching. A court certificate listed Flávio as a member of the Missão party since Wednesday, August 12, and recorded his departure from the Liberal Party on the same date.

This discrepancy barred his registration from being processed. The party's legal team also noted that they temporarily lost access to the system used to submit data to the court. The Superior Electoral Court clarified that this change was due to misuse of the tool by someone with access credentials, not a breach of their affiliation system.

Flávio Bolsonaro posted a video on social media alleging that his party affiliation was falsified, to which his team requested an immediate correction and threatened to ask the Federal Police to investigate. However, the Missão party's change was reversed hours later. Missão's president, Renan Santos, claimed the party had been targeted in a fraudulent affiliation attempt, stating that their system detected the irregularity and attempted to cancel it the same day.

The court, however, rejected the request and asked for a report containing access logs, emails and IP addresses. This is not the first such incident; in the past, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was wrongly registered as a Liberal Party member in the electoral system. The police investigation found that this change was made by a 13-year-old, who did not violate the system.

As of Thursday, six presidential candidacies had been registered, including Santos, who polls at around 3%. Campaigning officially began on Sunday, with Lula holding an event in São Bernardo do Campo, in greater São Paulo, and Flávio Bolsonaro at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro. Recent polls indicate Lula leads with 48%, compared to Flávio's 39.1% in a potential runoff.