Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the leading opposition candidate in the country's presidential election, said on Friday that he would respect the outcome of the October election and pledged to seek victory in accordance with current electoral rules.

The right-wing lawmaker is the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence for attempting to overturn his 2022 election defeat to left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

"I will respect the electoral process; I will respect the results", the senator said in an interview with TV Globo's Jornal Nacional, Brazil's most-watched news program.

Last September, Brazil's Supreme Court convicted his father of plotting a coup to remain in power after losing the 2022 election. The senator said that, if elected, he intends to grant amnesty to those convicted over the January 2023 riots, when Bolsonaro's supporters stormed and ransacked the presidential palace, the Supreme Court and Congress.

(Reuters, im)