Colgate smile, neatly combed chestnut hair… Nikolas Ferreira looks like the ideal son-in-law. But it’s best not to rely on it too much. At only 27 years old, this deputy, who defines himself as “Christian, pro-gun and defender of the family”, is for many the future of the Brazilian far right and a potential successor to Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil from 2019 to 2023.
The man already enjoys extraordinary popularity. The best elected MP in the 2022 election, with 1.4 million votes, he is followed by 19 million Internet users on social networks, including 4.8 million on TikTok, his favorite platform, almost as many as the former President Jair Bolsonaro (5.5 million) and more than the current Lula (4.4 million). An unprecedented strike force which will earn him one of the guests of honor of a high mass of Brazilian conservatives, organized on September 23 and 24 in Belo Horizonte.
It was precisely in a working-class neighborhood of the capital of Minas Gerais that “Nikolas” was born in 1996. His rise was rapid. Law license in hand, he took a stand in 2016 on his YouTube channel in favor of the dismissal of left-wing president Dilma Rousseff. Spotted by the Bolsonaro clan, he was elected in 2020 municipal councilor of Belo Horizonte, then deputy under the colors of the presidential party the Liberal Party.
Food aid, a “maneuver of Satan”
If his father, an evangelical pastor, taught him the art of preaching, his real mentor remains the former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. A form of filiation unites these two men, who often pose in each other’s arms. In April, for the wedding of the young deputy, Jair Bolsonaro dispatches his wife, the very pious Michelle, and records a video message, broadcast during the ceremony: “Nikolas will be an excellent companion, partner, friend and husband who will make you very happy. (…) He has everything to succeed and become an example for us all,” he said, addressing the bride, Lívia Orletti, a professional model.
“Nikolas is very charismatic. He is captivating. People identify with him,” greets his friend Bruno Engler, elected conservative in the regional assembly of Minas Gerais, who praises a politician “very well prepared, who studies the Bible a lot and preaches sincerely.” But like Jair Bolsonaro, he is first and foremost a clash pro.
Opposed to social policies, he believes that Jesus “did not come to end poverty” and that food aid is a “Satan’s Maneuver”. For him, Lula is a “dictator” and one ” thief “, who only won the 2022 presidential election thanks to massive fraud. Fond of conspiracy theories, he torpedoed the“hypocrisy” of confinement and the supposed risks of vaccination.
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