SAO PAULO, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro endorsed his son's 2026 presidential campaign on Thursday while out of jail for more surgery that has dogged him since a stabbing seven years ago.
Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, 44, has said he wants to consolidate his father's conservative legacy at the October 4 vote where he will try to unseat leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
"With the commitment of not allowing the popular will to be silenced, I make the decision to nominate Flavio Bolsonaro as a pre-candidate for the presidency in 2026," Jair Bolsonaro said in a letter read out by Flavio in front of a hospital in the city of Brasilia where his father was being treated.
He was undergoing scheduled treatment for a hernia, his wife Michelle Bolsonaro said on social media.
Jair Bolsonaro, 70, has a history of hospitalizations and surgeries related to a stabbing he suffered while campaigning in 2018, including a 12-hour procedure for recurring intestinal issues in April this year.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes authorized Bolsonaro to leave prison, where he is serving a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup, for the surgery.
But police were ordered to stay outside his room where computers and mobile phones were prohibited.
Deemed a flight risk following his conviction, the ex-president was detained in late November and began serving his 27-year sentence three days later.
News of the younger Bolsonaro's presidential candidacy this month rattled financial markets. Investors had bet the ex-president would back a more seasoned candidate such as Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, his former infrastructure minister.
(Reporting by Andre Romani in Sao Paulo and Rodrigo Viga Gaier in Rio de Janeiro; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
