SAO PAULO, June 18 (Reuters) - Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro is banking on a hard-line crackdown on crime to win over independent voters and shore up his base, as he looks to close the gap with incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ahead of October's election.
The senator launched a public safety plan on Thursday, centered on 12 priority measures, including treating Brazil's criminal factions as terrorist organizations, a move that found a receptive audience in Washington last month.
"They will be hunted down with force and intelligence," Bolsonaro said during Thursday's presentation in Sao Paulo. "Any armed criminal carrying a rifle will be taken down by our security forces," he added.
Flavio Bolsonaro is the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in 2019 with his own hard-on-crime approach. The country's homicide rate fell substantially during Bolsonaro's presidency, continuing a decline that had begun before he took office.
Security remains a top issue for voters frustrated with rampant street crime in many of Brazil's cities.
Senator Bolsonaro's plan specifically targets Brazil's two most powerful criminal networks, Comando Vermelho and Primeiro Comando da Capital, which together control criminal activity in vast swaths of the country.
The promise echoes successful lobbying in Washington, where the senator persuaded President Donald Trump last month to designate both groups as foreign terrorist organizations, giving it significant international weight.
Lula criticized Washington's move, calling it undue interference in the country's internal affairs. Legal experts have warned it could have knock-on effects for businesses operating in Brazil.
Flavio Bolsonaro has also promised to work to reduce the penal age from 18 to 16, deploy elite forces on the country's borders, and follow a model championed in El Salvador, building five new maximum security prisons.
Brazil is a country with one of the world's largest prison populations, long plagued by overcrowding and poor infrastructure.
"This is about taking fear away from citizens and placing it in the hands of criminals, and these prisons will be called Treva (which in Portuguese means darkness)," said the senator.
Senator Flavio's support in polls has slipped in recent weeks amid a crisis triggered after he confirmed he received money from a now-jailed banker to finance a movie about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro.
He trails Lula in a potential October runoff, with the incumbent leading 49.3% to 36.8%, according to a CNT/MDA poll released earlier this week.
(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes; Editing by Alistair Bell)
