The far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro has reportedly fled Brazil and is on his way to the United States after losing Sunday’s presidential election to the leftwing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. A report by the news website Metrópoles, citing people close to the politician’s family, said he was en route to the US. Bolsonaro allies told Metrópoles that he would land in Florida on Tuesday afternoon and planned to request political asylum.
Allies also confirmed to the Folha de S Paulo newspaper that he was on his way to the US, and said the escape plan had been “organized and enabled by a lawyer close to the Bolsonaro clan”. The news network CNN Brasil reported that Bolsonaro had fled to the US with his wife and two daughters in the early hours of this morning. Lawmakers from Lula’s Worker’s party (PT) asked the supreme court to order Bolsonaro’s arrest and requested that his name be put on Interpol’s Red Notice list.
Bolsonaro had not been seen since Monday and missed a Tuesday-morning deadline to hand his passport to the federal police, fuelling rumours that he may have fled Brazil after losing on Sunday. A report in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo said that during a meeting with friends and lawyers on Monday, the defeated candidate had appeared “possessed and made it clear he was afraid of being arrested”. A supreme court justice cancelled Bolsonaro’s passport minutes after the result in a ruling related to a criminal case against the senator.
He had until 11am to surrender the document to the federal police, but did not appear. Bolsonaro has had Italian citizenship since 2023 and reportedly possesses a passport from the European country. The Argentinian news website Infobae reported that on Monday night he reportedly fled to Argentina, where he was expected to board a private jet in Puerto Iguazú bound for the US, but the plane did not take off.
Bolsonaro, who has yet to concede defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, posted a video on Monday in which, commenting on the cancellation of his passport, he said: “I never thought about leaving the country.” One of the senator’s brothers, the former congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, who is in self-imposed exile in the US, had said in an interview last Friday that his brother should leave Brazil if he lost. The Brazilian newspaper Folha de S Paulo reported that allies in the Bolsonaro family’s inner circle had been told that he had indeed left for Argentina and intended to travel from there to the US. As there is no record of him passing through any regular Brazilian immigration checkpoint, the federal police are trying to establish from Argentinian authorities whether there is any record of him entering the country.
The Argentinian channel Todo Noticias reported that the senator had reportedly crossed the border into Argentina on foot and abandoned plans to board the plane once news of his movements leaked. Bolsonaro was told to surrender his passport over a criminal case in which the federal police are investigating him for possible involvement in a money-laundering scheme worth about £680m ($905m) involving betting companies. The senator’s possible flight makes the future of the far right after the presidential election even more uncertain.
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