Reports: Flávio Bolsonaro leaves for the United States

SAO PAULO (AP):

Defeated presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro has left Brasil for the United States following a stunning loss to incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Sunday’s election, according to multiple media reports.

A spokesperson for Bolsonaro did not respond to a request for comment. Bolsonaro’s brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who lives in Texas, had publicly encouraged him to leave Brasil if he lost the election.

Bolsonaro has touted his relationship with US President Donald Trump and visited the White House in May. The family connections go deeper: Eduardo Bolsonaro was convicted in absentia in June of illegally lobbying the Trump administration and sentenced to four years in prison. A warrant was recently issued for his arrest.

While Trump did not offer a full-throated endorsement of Bolsonaro, as he has with some other right-of-centre candidates in Latin America, he suggested on Monday, without providing evidence, that Brasil’s election was “rigged”.

Bolsonaro’s decision to leave Brasil came as a deadline for him to surrender his regular and diplomatic passports expired at noon on Tuesday. It remained unclear whether he had complied.

Bolsonaro, 45, was served with the order to surrender his passports Monday, a day after his stunning loss to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro said he received it outside the home where his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for attempting a coup following his 2022 election loss to Lula.

The sealed Supreme Court order was issued on Sunday. Bolsonaro has refused to concede defeat and has made unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud.

Bolsonaro initially asked for the election results to be annulled after an evening of chaos at some polling places that prompted the authorities to extend voting by two hours. On Monday, he urged the electoral court to investigate alleged election fraud and nullify Lula’s and Vice-President Geraldo Alckmin’s candidacies, which the electoral court has never done before.

To overturn the result, Bolsonaro would have to present evidence of fraud affecting Lula’s 4.4 million-vote margin and convince the eight-member electoral court before the results are certified on December 18.

Lula, who turned 81 on Tuesday, received more than 64 million votes, compared with fewer than 60 million for Bolsonaro, a margin of nearly four per cent.

Bolsonaro said in a video posted on Monday on his social media channels that he had no plans to leave Brasil and instead was attempting to organise opposition among his congressional colleagues to the election results. His eight-year term as a senator expires January 31, 2027, which will also cause him to lose special jurisdiction at the country’s Supreme Court.

Bolsonaro is under investigation by Brasil’s Supreme Court for alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion in two cases. In one, he’s accused of using a sports betting company to launder fraudulent deductions from government pensions paid to senior citizens. In the other, he is accused of accepting millions of dollars from a disgraced banker.

He has denied any wrongdoing in both cases.

Prosecutors suspect the funds from the banker were used to pay his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro’s expenses and to promote Flávio Bolsonaro’s political agenda with the Trump administration, documents show.

Brasilians had earlier taken to social media to ask where Bolsonaro was. Reporters gathered outside his home in the capital, Brasilia, but he did not appear.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Security of Argentina denied reports the Brasilian senator had entered the country. Brasilian media outlets reported that many Bolsonaro allies had been unable to reach him.