Renan Santos, the presidential candidate of the Missão party, said in an interview with TV Globo on Wednesday (26) that he intends to spend R$ 6 billion on building federal prisons and to impose an emergency regime in favelas to fight organized crime.
Under the proposal, ten new federal prisons would be built, each holding 30,000 to 40,000 inmates. Together, the units would create between 300,000 and 400,000 new spots. Brazil's federal penitentiary system currently has five maximum-security prisons with 1,040 spots in total, reserved mainly for high-risk inmates such as criminal faction leaders.
"On prisons alone, we need to spend R$ 6 billion to open spots and build ten prisons, each with 30,000 to 40,000 spots. The process needs to start now," Renan Santos said.
Asked whether his promise to retake, within one year, all areas controlled by criminal factions across the country is feasible, the candidate said Brazil faces a war "declared unilaterally" by organized crime. According to him, about 40 million Brazilians live directly or indirectly under the influence of criminals.
"If you live in a favela, organized crime rules over you, it can drive you out of your home," he said. "Life in a country at war is a sad life."
Emergency rule and the Bukele model
Renan defended changes to Brazil's Prison Execution Law so that members of criminal factions are treated as an "anomalous entity" under the law. In his view, arresting a drug trafficker is pointless if he is released shortly afterward.
The candidate also named El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, as a reference. Bukele's crackdown on gangs has been the target of human rights violation complaints, including arbitrary arrests and torture. "The idea of confrontation using a special regime, here, the state of defense in areas dominated by crime, I will adopt it. There will be an emergency regime in favelas so I can retake the favela," he said.
According to Folha de S.Paulo, when asked about the failed federal intervention in Rio de Janeiro, which cost R$ 1.2 billion in public funds and ended with organized crime expanding its control over the state, Renan answered that he favors a "declaration of war against organized crime".
Renan Santos, 42, is a businessman and leader of the Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL), an activist group he helped found in 2014 that grew out of the protests for the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff. Missão, a party created in 2025, is running its first presidential race, and public safety is the central theme of his campaign. At the campaign launch, he went as far as defending "killing those who steal".
The interview with Renan was the third in a Globo series with the six candidates best placed in the Quaest poll of August 14. Lula (PT) is interviewed on Thursday (27), followed by Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) on Friday (28) and Augusto Cury (Avante) on Saturday (29). The first round of the election is on October 4.