Defeated presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro has left Brazil for the United States, according to multiple media reports.
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Defeated presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro has left Brazil for the United States following his loss to incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Sunday’s election, according to multiple media reports.
Bolsonaro’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson also denied that Bolsonaro entered Argentina, according to the reports.
The move came amid a court-ordered deadline for Bolsonaro to surrender his regular and diplomatic passports, after an order was served on Monday and required compliance by noon Tuesday. It remained unclear whether he had complied.
Bolsonaro is 45. He said he received the order outside the home where his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest following his 2022 election loss to Lula and an attempted coup.
Bolsonaro’s departure also followed months of public refusal to concede defeat. He has made unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud and initially requested that the election results be annulled after polling disruptions prompted authorities to extend voting by two hours.
On Monday, Bolsonaro urged the electoral court to investigate alleged election fraud and nullify Lula’s and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin’s candidacies, a step the court has never taken before. To overturn the result, he would have to present evidence of fraud affecting Lula’s 4.4-million-vote margin and persuade the eight-member electoral court before results are certified on Dec. 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 4%.
Bolsonaro said in a video posted Monday on his social media channels that he had no plans to leave Brazil and instead was trying to organize opposition among his congressional colleagues to the election results. His eight-year term as a senator expires Jan. 31, 2027, which would also remove special jurisdiction at the country’s Supreme Court.
Bolsonaro is under investigation by Brazil’s Supreme Court in two cases involving alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. He has denied wrongdoing in both. In one case, prosecutors allege he used 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, with prosecutors suspecting the funds were used to cover his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro’s expenses and advance his political agenda with the Trump administration.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, who lives in Texas, was convicted in absentia in June for illegally lobbying the Trump administration and sentenced to four years in prison. A warrant was recently issued for his arrest.
Reporting on Monday also noted Brazilians had asked on social media where Bolsonaro was, and reporters gathered outside his home in Brasilia, where he did not appear. A close ally in the United States, Paulo Figueiredo, was asked about Bolsonaro’s whereabouts but did not answer directly, saying he had “no desire to speak with the press” and asking that people not persist.
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