The defeated presidential candidate left the country after missing a deadline to hand over his passports, while US officials confirmed visas for him and his family.
Defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro left Brazil for the United States following his loss in Sunday’s runoff election to incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, PBS NewsHour reported citing multiple media outlets. A senior U.S. State Department official told CBS News on Tuesday that the Trump administration will grant visas to Bolsonaro and his family, allowing them to enter the country.
The departure followed a dramatic turn in Brazilian politics just days after voters cast their ballots. In the second round, Lula won a fourth term in Brazil after a comeback that wiped out Bolsonaro’s first-round lead, securing 51.79% of the vote against 48.21% for his conservative rival.
Passports cancelled after missed deadline
Bolsonaro’s departure coincided with the expiration of a court-ordered deadline to surrender both his regular and diplomatic passports by noon on Tuesday. Police in Brazil announced they cancelled his passports after he failed to comply with the order, BBC News reported. Federal officers checked border crossings to determine if the senator had fled into neighboring Argentina, but Argentine security officials confirmed there was no record of him crossing into their territory.
The passport confiscation order was signed Sunday by a Supreme Court justice and served on Bolsonaro on Monday outside the home of his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro. The elder Bolsonaro is currently serving a 27-year house arrest sentence for attempting a coup after losing the 2022 presidential election to Lula. After his defeat that year, Jair Bolsonaro left Brazil for Florida before returning three months later.
Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign manager Rogério Marinho refused to comment on his whereabouts, and a campaign spokesperson did not respond to inquiries. Bolsonaro’s close ally Paulo Figueiredo, who lives in the United States, declined to speak directly about the senator’s location, stating he had no desire to address the press.
Disputed results and nullification demands
Despite trailing by more than 4.4 million votes, Bolsonaro refused to concede defeat and made unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. Official tallies showed Lula, who turned 81 on Tuesday, received more than 64 million ballots to Bolsonaro’s fewer than 60 million, winning by nearly four percentage points.
Bolsonaro called for the runoff results to be annulled, citing a two-hour voting extension on election day prompted by chaotic conditions at certain polling stations. Although both his party and Lula’s party had asked for the additional voting time, Bolsonaro labeled the judicial order granting it a dirty trick. On Monday, he petitioned the electoral court to disqualify the candidacies of Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, an action the court has never taken. To reverse the election, Bolsonaro would need to convince the eight-member electoral court with evidence before the results are certified on Dec. 18.
His political party, the Liberal Party, accepted the outcome, though it noted the voting extension warranted examination. U.S. President Donald Trump suggested without evidence that the election was rigged, Al Jazeera reported, telling reporters it looked like another rigged election.
Lula criticized Bolsonaro’s actions after reports of his departure emerged. “This is what the Bolsonaro family is like,” Lula said. “Brazil is their second nation, the US is their first.”
Mounting legal investigations
The Supreme Court’s surrender order stemmed from an investigation into alleged money laundering, which Bolsonaro denies. The court also instructed police on Tuesday to open a probe into his presidential campaign over alleged foreign funding.
Bolsonaro faces two separate Supreme Court inquiries into corruption, tax evasion and money laundering. One case examines whether a sports betting company was used to launder money through fraudulent deductions taken from senior citizens’ pensions. A second inquiry examines allegations that he accepted millions of dollars from a disgraced banker, with prosecutors suspecting the money funded political operations and the expenses of his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro.
Flávio Bolsonaro’s eight-year term in the Brazilian Senate runs through Jan. 31, 2027, at which point he will lose the special jurisdiction granted to lawmakers under Brazilian law.
His brother Eduardo, who lives in Texas, had urged him publicly to leave the country if he lost the race. Eduardo was convicted in absentia in June of illegal lobbying and given a four-year prison sentence, with an arrest warrant recently issued against him.
