Flávio Bolsonaro’s flight from Brazil following his electoral defeat

Flávio Bolsonaro is reported to have fled Brazil, crossing the land border with Argentina after his passport had been confiscated, and then boarding a flight bound for the United States.

The news must be confirmed, and comes in the wake of the release of a video in which the defeated candidate in Brazil’s run-off election claimed to have received a court order requiring him to hand over his passports and prohibiting him from leaving the country. It is therefore assumed that he crossed the border into Argentina using his national identity document. It should be noted that Javier Milei was the only right-wing and centre-right Latin American president not to have sent congratulations to Lula following his victory: instead, he spoke of ‘theft’. From Puerto Iguazú, an Argentine town on the border with Brazil and Paraguay, Flávio Bolsonaro is said to have then travelled to the United States aboard a Gulfstream G400 aircraft, registration LV-JQW, belonging to the company Baires Fly S.A. According to information obtained by the Argentine online news outlet Infobae, the company reportedly requested customs and immigration clearance for four passengers and three crew members. The aircraft has been registered in Argentina since 25 September 2020 in the name of that company. Previously, it had carried US and Mexican registration marks, including N524GA, N522AC, N522AG, XA-CHG and N152GA. The aircraft, manufactured in 2004 by Gulfstream Aerospace, has 14 seats, two Rolls-Royce Tay engines and an estimated range of between 7,000 and 7,800 kilometres.

On Monday, Flávio Bolsonaro stated that Federal Police officers had approached him as he was leaving his father’s house in Brasília to inform him of a decision attributed to Federal Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes. “They ordered me, right there on the street, to hand over my passports and also forbade me from leaving the country,” the senator said in a video posted on social media.

The restriction is reportedly linked to an investigation into alleged money laundering relating to the MP’s ties with lawyer Willer Tomaz, who is also implicated in investigations into the movement of funds in the gambling sector. Bolsonaro reiterated that the decision was taken on Sunday evening, following his defeat by Lula in the second round of the elections. However, he did not specify which investigation the measure relates to. “I’ve never said anything of the sort. Is that why they’re taking my passport away?” asked the senator. His remarks alluded to comments made by his brother, the former MP Eduardo Bolsonaro, who lives in the United States, regarding the possibility of leaving Brazil in the event of an electoral defeat.

The senator is under investigation on suspicion of corruption and money laundering in connection with the financing of the biographical film about his father, entitled Dark Horse. There is also reportedly a second investigation underway at the Federal Supreme Court into alleged money laundering involving Willer Tomaz, a lawyer and close friend of the senator, as revealed by the newspapers O Estado de S. Paulo and O Globo on the eve of the run-off. Bolsonaro denies all allegations in both cases.

Bolsonaro initially refused to concede defeat and announced that he would seek to have the election annulled, claiming that the extended voting hours on Sunday had favoured the ruling party’s candidate. However, the request to postpone the closing of polling stations by two hours – initially made by Lula and justified by transport problems and bad weather – was subsequently supported by Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, and yesterday the president of the Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, acknowledged the re-election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as declared by the Superior Electoral Court: a statement in which he did not congratulate the president, nor did he mention Flávio Bolsonaro’s promise to seek the annulment of the election in court. Flávio Bolsonaro had, however, said that he would continue to lead the political resistance against the new government (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qULz5UQ8ZRk), given that his coalition holds a majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

“To resist the chaos, I will organise the opposition,” he had declared in the same video in which he spoke about the court order concerning his passport. “I will hand over my passports and defend myself against this aberration, which is a clear attempt to intimidate me. But no one will silence me.”