Far-Right life coach taking Brazil by storm after rival smashes chair over his head in TV debate

Televised incident of Pablo Marcal being hit prompts analysts to cite the influencer as political heir to former president Jair Bolsonaro

Pablo Marcal might have anticipated the moment a rival smashed a chair into his side during the heated television debate between the candidates to be mayor of São Paulo. In the run-up to the show, Mr Marcal, 37, a millennial life coach and influencer with 14 million Instagram followers who has a knack for inflammatory, attention-seeking rhetoric, had vowed to “destabilise” his opponent, TV presenter Jose Luiz Datena.
During the televised debate on September 15, he repeatedly brought up a now shelved sexual harassment probe against Mr Datena while also accusing him of being “all bark and no bite”. Eventually, Mr Datena, 67, swung the chair at Mr Marcal. 
The sudden outburst of violence shocked Brazil and left Mr Marcal in hospital with a broken rib and dislocated finger. It has also cemented the political upstart’s national profile and could yet propel him to become mayor of the Western Hemisphere’s largest city – an ideal platform from which to run for the presidency. 
Analysts are now citing Mr Marcal as the political heir to former far-Right president Jair Bolsonaro and the latest in the trend of brash, populist leaders who have taken Latin America by storm in recent years, their rise turbocharged by outrageous comments that go viral on social media with bold often undeliverable campaign promises.
Dawisson Belem Lopes, a political scientist at Minas Gerais Federal University, describes Mr Marcal as a “very deft, truly talented” political operator and the “future of Brazilian politics”. He added: “As someone who believes in democratic institutions and the rule of law, I find that very disturbing.”
Before the debate, Mr Marcal had surged into a three-way tie with leftist challenger Guilherme Boulos and the conservative incumbent Ricardo Nunes. Mr Datena, who insists he does not regret his violent assault, was trailing several points behind them.
Preaching a peculiar brand of Christianity that equates material success with piousness, he blends the style of a TV evangelist with the economic libertarianism of Argentina’s Javier Milei and the iron fist approach to crime of El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Mr Marcal has long offered online self-help courses, some costing as much as £4,000, based on his “IP Method”, supposedly based on neuroscience. 
Covering everything from “mental blocks” to entrepreneurship, they have allowed him to amass an estimated personal fortune of £20 million. In one typical blockbusting course, titled “High Performance, 5Ps”, he promises to help customers achieve a “life of abundance” by focusing on “purpose, people, process, productivity and prosperity”. 
Yet Mr Marcal has a chequered history. He was convicted in 2010 for participating in a racket to hack online bank accounts, but then ran out the clock during the appeals process to avoid prison. 
He first made national headlines in Brazil in 2022, when he led dozens of unprepared followers up one of Brazil’s tallest mountains, the 8,000ft Pico dos Marins, in a raging storm. The bedraggled group eventually had to be rescued and prosecutors even briefly opened an “attempted murder” probe into Mr Marçal. He insists he did not force anyone to follow him on the expedition.
In his mayoral run, he is promising to turbocharge the economy of “São Paulo 2.0”, rid the city of crack addicts and crime, and build the world’s tallest skyscraper but, sceptics note, without explaining how.