Flavio Bolsonaro fled Brazil hours after losing the presidential election and being ordered to surrender his passports, Folha de S Paulo reported, citing allies of the conservative senator.
The press secretary for Argentine President Javier Milei denied that Bolsonaro had entered the country after Infobae reported that he had crossed into Argentina through Misiones, a province bordering Brazil, and planned to travel to the US from there. Bolsonaro said the measure followed comments by his brother Eduardo, who said on a podcast that Flavio should leave Brazil if he lost the election. Bolsonaro lost Brazil’s presidential runoff to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday. On Monday, Bolsonaro said in a social media video that the Federal Police had ordered him to surrender both his regular and diplomatic passports and told him he was barred from leaving Brazil. A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Tuesday ordered federal authorities to open an investigation into possible illegal foreign financing of Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign, including by a group linked to US Vice President JD Vance.
Moraes’ decision, coming on the heels of Bolsonaro’s failed attempt to challenge the election results, injected tension into an already tumultuous election and reinforced perceptions among his supporters that the court is determined to persecute their political movement. A spokesman for Bolsonaro didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. He later returned and was subsequently barred from holding public office for eight years for spreading false claims about Brazil’s electronic voting system ahead of the election.
He initially said he would request the annulment of the results due to a Supreme Court decision to extend voting hours, before backing off those plans. A 45-year-old senator, Flavio Bolsonaro is the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who left Brazil for the US after losing the 2022 election to Lula.
