By Luciana Magalhaes
BRASILIA, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, told Reuters he plans a presidential campaign next year to moderate the family legacy while delivering smaller government, tax cuts and privatizations.
In his first interview with international media since declaring his presidential ambitions earlier this month, the senator said he was planning to travel abroad in January. Stops may include the United States, Argentina, Chile, Israel, Europe and the Middle East.
Elected to Brazil's Senate in 2018 on the conservative wave that brought his father to the presidency, he vowed to take up the mantle of the elder Bolsonaro's market-friendly reforms while distancing himself from right-wing culture wars.
"I consider myself, truly, a more centered Bolsonaro," he said in a Friday afternoon interview from his Brasilia office, decorated with miniatures of his father and U.S. President Donald Trump. "I've always had this profile: being more moderate, more measured."
A VACCINATED BOLSONARO
Since winning the endorsement of his father, now serving a 27-year sentence for a failed coup plot, Senator Bolsonaro, 44, has pitched himself to business leaders as a conservative candidate without baggage on topics such as COVID-19 vaccines.
"I am a Bolsonaro who got vaccinated. I took two doses of AstraZeneca, and my father preferred not to," he said.
News of the younger Bolsonaro's 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, to head off a fourth term from leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Evangelical firebrand Pastor Silas Malafaia, one of his father's key counselors, has also cast doubt on the senator's "political muscle."
While the senator acknowledged skepticism from some political allies, he insisted he can unite the right and deliver a bold pro-market agenda, prioritizing "fiscal balance, reduced public spending, modernization of the State and an obsession with lower taxes."
Recent polls show him leading a crowded field of right-wing presidential hopefuls, but lagging 80-year-old Lula in a potential runoff.
LEANER STATE AND PRIVATIZATIONS
Senator Bolsonaro said his economic views include cutting taxes, modernizing the state, and privatizations to energize Latin America's largest economy, which could include the debt-laden Brazilian postal service.
He also suggested a closer look at the holdings of state-run oil company Petrobras to potentially divest assets and streamline operations, as management did under his father.
"It's a large conglomerate of companies," he said of the oil firm. "We need to see what works and should continue, and what doesn't work."
The senator said he also saw room to shake up Brazil's commercial aviation market with fresh competition to improve services and prices.
"Today you practically have two or three airlines operating in Brazil, which is very few," he said.
For his own foreign travel next month, he said his itinerary is being organized by his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro, who lost his status as federal lawmaker after moving to the United States to urge a policy response to his father's trial.
The senator said it was still unclear if he would meet with senior U.S. officials on the trip. However, he would like to meet with Trump, he noted, and hopes to invite him to the January 2027 inauguration if he wins next October's election.
(Reporting by Luciana MagalhaesEditing by Manuela Andreoni, Brad Haynes and Franklin Paul)
