Brasilia (AFP)

Right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday launched the Alliance for Brazil, a new party highlighting God, the family and the homeland dear to the evangelicals, after having quarreled with the one in whose colors he stood elect a year ago.

"If I had done this earlier (to start a new party), we would have elected 100 deputies and one senator per state," said the head of state at the party launch ceremony, in a luxury hotel from Brasilia.

This is the ninth party change of Jair Bolsonaro, 64, in 30 years of political life.

The formation he just left, the Social Liberal Party (PSL), insignificant before he joined in March 2018, took advantage of the ultra-conservative wave that brought him to power to elect more than 50 MPs and four senators in the last general election.

At the launch ceremony of the Alliance for Brazil, the guests were handpicked and a giant screen installed outside the hotel, where a few dozen supporters of the president had gathered, most dressed in the yellow and green colors of Brazil.

The official Twitter account of the party, which already has nearly 150,000 subscribers, has repeatedly accompanied its tweets keywords #Good, #Family or #Patrie.

The Alliance for Brazil puts forward in its program "respect for God and religion" and "defense of life, self-defense and family".

"Secularism has never meant obligatory atheism," according to the text, read aloud during the ceremony by party lawyer Karina Kufa.

Resolutely anti-abortion, the text advocates "the defense of human life from conception", then, further, "the rejection of socialism and communism".

Jair Bolsonaro is the president of the new party and his eldest son Flavio, senator, the vice president.

"Much more than a party, it's the dream and inspiration of people loyal to President Jair Bolsonaro, to unite the country around allies with the same ideals and patriotic intentions," sums up the official agenda while the government dropped in satisfaction surveys.

The PSL, undermined by internal tensions for several weeks, eventually implode: President Bolsonaro hopes that about thirty deputies will leave to join his new party.

The atmosphere within the PSL has deteriorated especially due to suspicions of ghost candidates who would have allowed misappropriation of public funds.

© 2019 AFP