By Ricardo Brito, Luciana Magalhaes and Lisandra Paraguassu
BRASILIA (Reuters) -The trial of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro over an alleged coup plot to reverse his 2022 electoral loss is still days away from a final verdict, but a front-runner has emerged in the jockeying to take his place in next year's campaign.
Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas flew to the capital last week, campaigning in Congress to grant Bolsonaro amnesty if the Supreme Court convicts him, as is widely expected.
In public remarks, he vowed a pardon for Bolsonaro "if I were president."
In private, he sought and received the former leader's blessing to take up the cause in seeking an amnesty, according to two people familiar with the conversations.
To many in Brasilia, it looked like a man keen to make himself a successor.
The governor's office declined to comment on his presidential prospects. Freitas has denied being interested in running. On Sunday, he told Bolsonaro supporters gathered in Sao Paulo that the priority was passing a law to pardon the ex-president.
"There's only one candidate for us: Jair Messias Bolsonaro," he said. "We're here to demand justice."
Yet many on the Brazilian right are ready to turn the page on Bolsonaro, who is already barred from running for office, and see Freitas as their best bet to retake the presidency in the 2026 election.
"The best candidate to win, the one with the most secure path to victory, is Tarcisio," said Congressman Jose Rocha, who left Bolsonaro's right-wing Liberal Party in 2022.
Many in Brazil's business elite and center-right parties looking to leave the coalition of leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva see Freitas as a candidate who could rebrand the growing conservative coalition originally forged by Bolsonaro.
Freitas, an ex-army engineer, is known for building public infrastructure while in Bolsonaro's cabinet and privatizing it as governor. He has cultivated the image of a pragmatic administrator with less interest in ideological battles.
BOLSONARO FAMILY BRISTLES
That has stirred skepticism from some hardcore Bolsonaro allies, including members of the ex-president's family with their own ambitions.
"Tarcisio may be a good candidate," said Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the former leader, in an interview with news website Metropoles last month, before adding: "I believe there is space for us to try a candidacy to the right."
The lawmaker offered his own "anti-establishment" candidacy, adding that his brother, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, could also be a candidate.
But even some of the ex-president's avid backers are ready to move past the polarization surrounding his family, leaning toward Freitas rather than the next generation of Bolsonaros.
"(Freitas) has charisma, and he is more sensible," said Rita de Cassia Versiani, a retiree at a demonstration in support of Bolsonaro in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, touting the governor's strengths. "He is an excellent right-wing politician."
Lula's allies have pounced on the prospect of internecine strife.
"Tarcisio is making this movement to bury Bolsonaro alive and emerge as alternative to the right," said Congressman Jose Guimaraes, head of Lula's coalition in the lower house. "There is no solidarity to Bolsonaro there."
WAITING FOR THE NOD
One person close to Freitas, who requested anonymity to discuss private talks, said the governor will run for president only if he has Bolsonaro's blessing.
That is still not a sure thing, according to sources close to Bolsonaro. One said Bolsonaro's dream was always to name one of his sons as his candidate for the presidency.
Still, a pardon from the next president looks like the easiest way for the former president to escape any sentence if he is convicted.
Amnesty bills from conservative lawmakers have varied, with some proposals including Bolsonaro and others limited to his supporters who are serving prison sentences for storming government buildings in protest over his loss to Lula in the 2022 election.
The most popular amnesty bill in Congress would release the former president from serving time, but would not restore his right to run for public office, which he lost in 2023 over his unfounded claims about Brazil's electronic voting system.
"What we want is to reach an agreement that allows for amnesty only for criminal convictions, without extending it to electoral offenses," said the conservative lawmaker Rocha.
Leaders of both the Senate and lower house of Congress, who have kept an open channel to Lula despite a conservative majority among lawmakers, are resisting pressure to allow a vote on any amnesty bill that would benefit Bolsonaro.
Doubtful that Freitas is really working to break that stalemate, some of the ex-president's core supporters would rather stick to the Bolsonaro clan.
Simon Freitas, a teacher draped in a U.S. flag at a pro-Bolsonaro protest in Brasilia on Sunday, said he would prefer to see lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro on the ballot.
The governor "would be a good name if he was truly with President Bolsonaro," he said, adding: "Why is it only now, close to the 2026 elections, that we're seeing this kind of active engagement?"
Congresswoman Bia Kicis, one of the ex-president's most ardent allies in Brasilia, said Freitas was doing what he must to court the coalition.
"By acting this way, he clearly broadens his chances of winning over those who are truly loyal to President Bolsonaro," she said.
(Reporting by Ricardo Brito, Luciana Magalhaes and Lisandra Paraguassu in BrasiliaWriting and additional reporting by Manuela AndreoniEditing by Brad Haynes and Frances Kerry)
