BRASILIA/SAO PAULO, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of jailed former President Jair Bolsonaro, is meeting this week with business and finance leaders to address skepticism over his economic policies as he prepares to run for president next year, people familiar with his plans said.
After a lunch last Thursday at UBS offices in Sao Paulo where attendees questioned the seriousness of his bid, the senator is meeting this week with banks, investment funds, business leaders
and a market-focused podcast, two of the sources told Reuters.
Another of the sources close to the senator said he is unlikely to define an economic program before February. Until then, he plans an intense schedule of private-sector meetings and international travel including a visit to the United States, the same source said.
Flavio Bolsonaro did not respond to a request for comment. The people declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The goal, according to the first two sources, is to present his candidacy as credible to business leaders who helped propel his father to the presidency in 2018. The former president, serving time for a coup plot after his 2022 electoral defeat, said this month he wanted his eldest son to run for Brazil's highest office in 2026.
The elder Bolsonaro's endorsement of his son sent Brazil's currency and stock market sliding. Many investors had bet on Bolsonaro backing a more seasoned candidate with executive experience, such as Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, his former minister, to challenge leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva next year.
Lula is polling 10 percentage points ahead of both Tarcisio and Flavio Bolsonaro in simulated run-off scenarios, according to a survey by pollster Quaest released on Tuesday.
The younger Bolsonaro added to skepticism last Sunday by saying he could withdraw his candidacy although that would come "at a price," while his allies pushed in Congress to shorten his father's prison sentence. The senator has since vowed to stay in the race, pledging to present a market-friendly agenda as "a more centrist Bolsonaro."
The elder Bolsonaro deferred economic policy questions throughout his 2018 campaign to University of Chicago-trained economist Paulo Guedes, his eventual economy minister, but his son has not named a point person to coordinate his policy proposals.
At the UBS lunch, Flavio Bolsonaro said his agenda would mirror his father's pro-market policies, such as privatizations and fiscal discipline, according to attendees. They said the senator suggested his economic policies would be led by Guedes, former central bank chief Roberto Campos Neto, former development bank head Gustavo Montezano, or someone similar.
Guedes and Campos Neto have not been invited to take a role in Bolsonaro's nascent campaign, nor are they interested in one, according to people close to the former officials.
Guedes has told acquaintances he is reluctant to return to frontline politics given the deep polarization in Latin America's largest economy, the same sources said. Campos Neto in July became vice-chairman of Nubank, Latin America's biggest digital lender.
Montezano, chief executive of investment firm YvY Capital, was at the UBS luncheon but said through his press office that he attended strictly as a guest at the organizers' invitation.
"The person chosen will be someone who worked with Guedes, is close to him, or aligns with the same agenda - that is guaranteed," one of the sources close to the senator said, adding that it would be too early to settle on a single name.
Two of the sources close to the former economic officials said Flavio Bolsonaro recently reached out to Adolfo Sachsida, who headed Brazil's economic policy secretariat under Guedes and later served as energy minister.
Their conversation was broadly focused on political support rather than any specific role in the campaign, one of them said.
(Reporting by Marcela Ayres and Luciana Magalhaes; Editing by Brad Haynes and Edmund Klamann)
