Bolsonaro Claims Election Theft, Fleeing Brazil to US
Flavio Bolsonaro declares himself Brazil’s rightful president after losing election, flees to US.
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Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, declared himself the rightful president of Brazil after losing Sunday’s election and fled to the United States to evade a court-ordered travel ban. The Liberal Party senator arrived in Miami on Tuesday, refusing to surrender his passports, according to Reuters.
Bolsonaro first called himself Brazil’s “elected president” in a letter on X, later deleting it and posting another message describing himself as the country’s rightful “leader.” He accused his defeat of being the result of an electoral coup by the Supreme Court and Workers’ Party President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Lula won the runoff with 51.79% of the vote to Bolsonaro’s 48.21%, a gap of about 4.43 million ballots, according to Latin Times. The federal electoral court, foreign governments, and Bolsonaro’s own party accepted the outcome, Reuters reported.
“I want to say, not only to my 60 million voters but to the Brazilian people, that I am the leader and that the criminals who stole Brazil’s election are part of a criminal organization that has established a tyranny,” Bolsonaro wrote, according to Reuters.
CARTA À NAÇÃO BRASILEIRA 🇧🇷 28.10.26 https://t.co/QqOGZuF8G0
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes had ordered him to surrender his passports, linking him to a money-laundering inquiry and a separate film-financing case, the Latin Times reported. The Tuesday deadline lapsed with nothing delivered. Bolsonaro thanked Argentine President Javier Milei for aiding his travel and Trump for giving his family entry visas, according to Reuters.
Bolsonaro also denied running from anything. “I want to make this clear: I did not flee Brazil,” he wrote, according to Reuters. “I left Brazil, but I did not abandon the Brazilian people.”
Bolsonaro’s claim of a stolen election rests on a two-hour voting extension granted by a Lula-appointed justice. The judge acted after Lula’s allies alleged voter suppression in the northeast. Bolsonaro’s own campaign had also sought more time over rain in the south, Reuters noted. Fewer than 35,000 votes, about 0.03% of the total, came in during the extension, according to an analysis by Insper professor Pedro Burgos.
Bolsonaro won the first round of the election with 47% of the vote to Lula’s 45% and was widely expected to win the runoff after gaining the endorsements of two runners-up who received more than 5% of the vote between them. Lula is the first presidential candidate in Brazilian history to win a runoff election after failing to place first in the initial round.
Trump dodged questions at Joint Base Andrews and restated his view that Brazil had held “a very strange election,” according to Reuters.
Bolsonaro’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, also traveled to the U.S. after disputing his 2022 loss to Lula. He later returned to Brazil and is now serving 27 years under house arrest for plotting a coup.
Source: Daily Caller
