They call him the Trump of the Tropics, yet Jair Bolsonaro has just established a political dynasty that would be the envy of the Kennedys.

Earlier this month, his brother, his wife and two of his sons won seats in Brazil’s parliament. On Sunday, another son, Flávio, is expected to assume the role his father once held, with pollsters and pundits predicting he will win the run-off to become president of the world’s fourth-largest democracy.

Few families have so thoroughly dominated the levers of power since Brazil became a republic in 1889. Yet while the country’s populist former president has engineered one of the most unlikely political comebacks of modern times from behind bars, it is his third wife, Michelle, who may have made it possible.The daughter of a bus driver, she has emerged as an unlikely champion of Brazil’s rapidly growing evangelical movement, winning the devotion of pious women across the country and the grudging respect of her querulous stepsons, with whom she openly feuded during the election campaign.

Having forced them into line, she now looks poised to play an indispensable role in shaping Brazil’s future, as South America’s biggest country embraces the Right-wing wave sweeping the continent.

Just a few months ago, her husband’s political career seemed beyond resurrection. Sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup, Jair Bolsonaro looked like a relic of the country’s past.

Instead, at 71 he looks set once again to shape Brazil’s future, with his eldest son Flávio in pole position for the presidency.

Defying the pollsters, Flávio defeated Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the first round earlier this month, dealing what could prove a fatal blow to the incumbent’s hopes of securing a fourth term. Since the restoration of Brazilian democracy in 1985, no candidate who lost in the first round has gone on to win the second.

Yet even if Lula pulls off a come-from-behind upset, he will be forced to govern in a Bolsonaro straitjacket. So sweeping was the family’s victory in the parliamentary elections that Jair Bolsonaro’s inaptly named Liberal Party now commands the largest congressional caucus since Brazil adopted its democratic constitution in 1988. At state level, the party enjoys effective control of the country’s three richest and most populous states: São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. In the senate, meanwhile, sympathetic Right-wingers are closing in on the two-thirds majority needed to fulfil Flávio’s pledge to impeach the supreme court judges who convicted his father.

At the centre of this Right-wing juggernaut stands the Bolsonaro family itself. Jair Bolsonaro may have been barred from office, but five members of his family have won elected positions. His eldest son is favourite to become president; his brother Renato and youngest son, Jair Renan, have both won seats in congress. His second son, Carlos, has secured a senate seat, as has his wife.

Political dynasties are hardly unusual. From the Kirchners of Argentina and the Fujimoris of Peru to the Marcoses of the Philippines and the Gandhis of India, certain countries seem predisposed to them. But few are as colourful as the Bolsonaros, whose appetite for melodrama, plot twists, feuding and scandal could have been lifted straight from the telenovelas beloved across Latin America.

All the archetypes are present. El Patriarca, the domineering patriarch whose word is law, is played by Jair Bolsonaro himself. Michelle, devoted to God and her husband, is La Dama Virtuosa, the pious pillar of the household – though not without ambitions of her own.

The heir, El Heredero, is Flávio: dependable but wooden, hardly the family favourite but a safe pair of hands when it comes to running the family business. Then there is El Hijo Mimado, the spoiled son and social climber, played by Eduardo, Jair’s third son. Nattily dressed and smooth-talking, he did more than anyone to build Brand Bolsonaro in the corridors of MAGA power. Now exiled in Texas, he has been sentenced in absentia to four years in prison after lobbying Donald Trump to sanction the judges that jailed his father – an intervention Brazil’s courts ruled was an attempt to subvert the judicial process.

The family’s trajectory is equally suited to the genre. Jair Bolsonaro has hogged many of the plotlines. There was the near-fatal stabbing in 2018 that propelled him to the presidency just 52 days later, despite leaving him dependent on a colostomy bag for his first months in office. Then came his fall from grace after four turbulent years marked by mudslinging and accusations of treachery within his inner circle.

Most sensational of all was the coup plot. Bolsonaro was found guilty of involvement in a lurid scheme not merely to overturn his 2022 election defeat but to assassinate Lula with poison and use his death to justify a declaration of martial law.

‘Rise like a lioness’

Throughout it all, Mrs Bolsonaro stuck by her husband, cultivating an image as a woman of principle and courage among Brazil’s evangelical faithful by remaining devoted.

She told The Telegraph last year that she had no ambitions beyond “caring for my daughters and my husband”. But, she added, she would also “rise like a lioness to defend our conservative values, truth and justice”.

Yet Mrs Bolsonaro has also managed to meld religious piety with glamour, speaking frankly about the cosmetic procedures she has undergone, from a tummy tuck and breast implants to abdominal liposuction, facial fillers and Botox. In the process, she has built a brand of her own while burnishing that of her husband’s family.

Many on the Brazilian Right believed she should have contested the presidency herself rather than back her stepson, who, at 45, is 11 months older than she is. Mrs Bolsonaro is widely regarded as the more charismatic of the two, with a cleaner reputation than Flávio, who faces allegations of links to Rio’s criminal underworld, which he denies.

Her own backstory is compelling. Raised amid the violence and deprivation of a broken home, she eventually found work as a supermarket product demonstrator, strutting the aisles dressed as a smiling, supersized packet of pasta.

After finding God through the evangelical church, she landed a job as a parliamentary secretary, where she caught the eye of her future husband, who had been married twice before and was 27 years her senior.

For Brazil’s 56 million evangelical Christians – more than a quarter of the population – Mrs Bolsonaro has become an ideal to emulate: devoted to her husband and guided by God, yet assertive and strong. She describes herself as “feminine, not feminist”.

“We don’t need to shout. We don’t need to burn our bras. We don’t need to belittle the figure of men.”

As head of the party’s women’s wing, she is credited with winning over large numbers of female voters who had previously been sceptical of the Bolsonaros’ unapologetic machismo.

Yet, in true telenovela style, she has repeatedly clashed with her stepsons.

In late June, just two months before the election, she released a blistering 27-minute video accusing Flávio of undermining her authority, excluding her from decisions and repeatedly humiliating her behind the scenes. She resigned as head of the women’s wing.

Her stepsons were furious, with Eduardo dismissing her as “immature”. But as the headlines mounted and public opinion turned against him, Flávio swiftly apologised in public and begged her to help his campaign. She duly obliged.

The episode may offer a glimpse of the power struggle to come. Flávio could soon be Brazil’s president, while his father, under house arrest, will retain considerable influence – and could emerge as the power behind the throne if his son secures his release.

Both men, however, will have to reckon with the woman who insists she is not a feminist, yet may emerge as one of the most powerful women in Brazil’s history.

Brazilians await the next episode of The Bolsonaros, the telenovela they cannot seem to live without, with bated breath.

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