Two days after his crushing presidential election defeat, Brazil was left wondering Tuesday evening where Flavio Bolsonaro had disappeared to. The far-right candidate, who had led in the polls but lost to incumbent left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has refused to recognize his defeat. On Monday, Brazil's Supreme Court ordered him to surrender his passports over fears he might flee the country while under investigation for corruption.
But by Tuesday evening, after the deadline had passed, Brazilian authorities announced that he had failed to comply and that his passports had been canceled. Shortly afterward, Brazilian media outlets, citing sources including people close to Bolsonaro, reported that he had left for the United States. A U.S. official subsequently told Reuters that Bolsonaro was on his way to the country.
The reports that Bolsonaro had left for the United States came after Brazilian Federal Police officials said earlier Tuesday that they were trying to locate him. Amid speculation and reports that he might have attempted to flee overland into Argentina, where his political ally, right-wing President Javier Milei, is in power, Argentine authorities said they had no record of Bolsonaro entering the country. Bolsonaro's aides, meanwhile, either declined to say where he was or said they did not know. Brazilians can enter neighboring Argentina using only a national identity card, without a passport.
The Argentine government's statement followed local media reports earlier Tuesday that a private aircraft had landed at Iguazu International Airport, near the Argentina-Brazil border. Authorities inspected the aircraft and its crew but found no flight plan listing members of the Bolsonaro family. A spokesperson for Milei, who has yet to congratulate Lula on his victory, said that "there is no asylum request," declining to provide further details. A senior Brazilian Federal Police official said Bolsonaro had not left the country through any official border crossing.
Incumbent and reelected President Lula da Silva
(Photo: AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Paulo Figueiredo, a right-wing social media influencer who serves as an unofficial spokesperson for the Bolsonaro family, declined Tuesday afternoon to answer questions about the politician's whereabouts. In a statement, he wrote: "After months of intense work that has been unfairly thwarted, I am not in the mood to speak to the press. If I have any comments to make on any matter, I will get in touch."
Another source close to Bolsonaro said he had been unable to reach him. "I tried to talk to Flavio this morning by phone," the source said. "It rang and it rang, but he didn't pick up."
A film, $12 million and a missed 24-hour deadline
Bolsonaro had been considered the favorite to win Sunday's decisive second round of Brazil's presidential election, leading Lula by 1 to 2 percentage points in opinion polls. But when the votes were counted, he had lost by more than 3.5 percentage points, receiving 48.21% of the vote against Lula's 51.79%.
The count began late following a decision to extend voting by two hours, prompting Bolsonaro to allege irregularities and announce that he would not recognize the results, just as his father, Jair Bolsonaro, had done after narrowly losing to Lula in the 2022 presidential election. On Monday, however, the younger Bolsonaro's party announced that it recognized Lula's victory.
Flavio Bolsonaro waves an Israeli flag on the final day of campaign rallies
(Photo: AP Photo/Lucas Landau)
On Monday, the Supreme Court gave Flavio Bolsonaro 24 hours to surrender his passports amid several ongoing investigations against him, including a complex corruption, money laundering and tax evasion case in which he acknowledged seeking around $12 million from former banker Daniel Vorcaro to finance a film about his father's life. The younger Bolsonaro denies any wrongdoing and promised to hand over his passports, but by Tuesday evening it emerged that he had failed to do so, prompting authorities to cancel them.
The order requiring him to surrender his passports, making it more difficult for him to leave Brazil, came amid fears that he might follow in the footsteps of his father, Jair, who flew to the United States after refusing to concede defeat four years ago and remained there for an extended period. The elder Bolsonaro eventually returned to Brazil, where he was later arrested and sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup.
The demand to confiscate Flavio Bolsonaro's passports also followed a statement by his younger brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who lives in the United States and said that an election defeat would require Flavio to leave Brazil. "If my brother does not win, I'm in favor that he would leave the country," Eduardo told podcaster Steven Crowder on October 23.
On Monday, after the election defeat and the order to surrender his passports, Flavio Bolsonaro said in an Instagram video: "I never thought about leaving the country. I will hand over my passports and defend myself against this outrage, which is clearly an attempt to intimidate me, but no one will silence me."
President Trump
(Photo: AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
U.S. President Donald Trump, an ally of the Bolsonaro family, also weighed in on Brazil's election Monday, joining efforts to cast doubt on the results and claiming without evidence that the vote had been rigged.
"It looked terrible to me," Trump told reporters before boarding Air Force One. "I didn't take sides, but it looked like another rigged election, frankly." He added that elections should be beyond dispute and that the Brazilian vote had looked very bad to him.
Throughout his campaign, Flavio Bolsonaro had promised to strengthen ties with the United States if elected. His defeat this week dealt a blow to Trump's ambitions to further expand his influence in Latin America, where Brazil is the largest country by both area and population, following a series of victories by right-wing politicians in the region, including Chile, Peru and Colombia.
Lula, who has taken strongly critical positions toward Israel, frequently clashes with Trump and has accused him of improperly interfering in Brazil's election. In his victory speech Sunday, Lula delivered a pointed message to the American president, promising that under his leadership, "Brazil is nobody's backyard."