Jair Bolsonaro's running mate, retired general Hamilton Mourão (PRTB), said that the 13th salary (a Christmas bonus that all working Brazilians are entitled by law) is a "jabuticaba" (a berry typical of Brazil), meaning something that could only happen in the country, "a weight in entrepreneurs' backs" and "social justice made with someone else's money."

"Brazilian jabuticabas. Thirteenth salary. If we collect 12 salaries, how can we pay 13? It's a complicated thing. This is the only country where a person goes on vacation and makes more money. This is our thing, our laws. It's the usual social justice made with someone else's money, not the government's money," said Mourão during a panel in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, on Wednesday (26th).

Mourão's controversy brought one more problem to the presidential frontrunner's campaign. Bolsonaro's aides want to keep his vice-president silent from now on.

In an unprecedented move, Bolsonaro tweeted a rebuke to critics of Brazil labor law, saying that these were people who didn't know the Brazilian constitution. In short, he disavowed his running mate.

The group of retired Military men working on Bolsonaro's policy proposals wasn't happy with the swift reaction, but they want to avoid direct confrontation and they said they could understand why the soundbite needed damage control. Bolsonaro and Mourão are expected to meet and discuss what took place on Wednesday. 

But Bolsonaro's opponents' campaigns had a field day. If the return of CPMF (Brazil's financial transactions tax, currently defunct), first considered and then brushed aside, made it to PSDB's political ads, strategists were already including "the end of the 13th" in Thursday's evening ads.

(With Alexandre Elmi)

^{Translated by NATASHA MADOV}
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