Far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro has reportedly fled Brazil and is headed to the United States after losing Sunday’s presidential election to incumbent leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. A report by the Metropoles news website, citing people close to the politician’s family, said he was on his way to the United States. “The plane is in flight,” Metrópoles reported, without clarifying where it had taken off from. Bolsonaro’s allies told Metrópoles that he would land in Florida on Tuesday afternoon and planned to request political asylum. “The Donald Trump administration has been informed,” the website adds. The allies also confirmed to the Folha de S Paulo newspaper that he was heading to the United States and said the escape plan had been “organized and enabled by a lawyer close to the Bolsonaro clan.” “They say the flight should land in a few hours,” the newspaper added. CNN Brazil reported that Bolsonaro had fled to the United States with his wife and two daughters in the early hours of this morning. Bolsonaro had not been seen since Monday and missed a Tuesday morning deadline to hand over his passport to federal police, fueling rumors that he may have fled Brazil after losing on Sunday. A report in Brazilian newspaper O Globo said that during a meeting with friends and lawyers on Monday, the defeated candidate seemed “possessed and made it clear that he was afraid of being arrested.” A Supreme Court judge canceled Bolsonaro’s passport minutes after the outcome of a ruling related to a criminal case against the senator. He had until 11 in the morning to deliver the document to the federal police, but it did not appear. Argentine news website Infobae reported that on Monday night he fled to Argentina, where he was expected to board a private jet in Puerto Iguazú bound for the United States, but the plane did not take off. Bolsonaro, who has not yet conceded defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, published a video on Monday in which, commenting on the cancellation of his passport, he said: “I never thought about leaving the country.” One of the senator’s brothers, former congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, who is in self-imposed exile in the US, had said in an interview last Friday that his brother should leave Brazil if he lost. Brazilian newspaper Folha de S Paulo reported that allies in the Bolsonaro family’s inner circle had been told that he had indeed left for Argentina and intended to travel from there to the US. As there is no record of him passing through any regular Brazilian immigration checkpoints, federal police are trying to establish with Argentine authorities whether there is any record of him entering the country. The Argentine channel Todo Noticias reported that the senator had crossed the border into Argentina on foot and abandoned his plans to board the plane once news of his movements leaked. Bolsonaro was asked to hand over his passport in a criminal case in which federal police are investigating him for his possible involvement in a money laundering scheme worth around £680 million ($905 million) involving betting companies. The senator’s possible flight makes the future of the extreme right after the presidential elections even more uncertain. The family’s patriarch, Jair Bolsonaro, is under house arrest for attempting a coup, and one of his sons is in the United States and the whereabouts of another are unclear. Eduardo Bolsonaro has an outstanding arrest warrant against him in Brazil, after being sentenced to four years in prison for trying to interfere in his father’s trial by pressuring Donald Trump to impose sanctions on the judges hearing the case. Breaking news in the US Receive the most important news after the newsletter promotionPolitical scientist Magna Inácio, professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, believes that a power vacuum may now emerge within the right. “The resistance of Brazilian voters to handing victory to this more extremist camp sends a signal that the right leadership is now in play,” he said. Since Jair Bolsonaro, then a career congressman with few laws to his name, surprisingly won the presidency in 2018, there has effectively been no right in Brazil, only the far-right Bolsonarism movement. Camila Rocha, a political scientist who studies Brazil’s new right, believes the fact that three Bolsonaros are now potentially out of the picture could trigger a “power shift” away from blood ties. “I think there is a tendency for power to move away from the sons,” Rocha said, noting that before the election, polls showed that Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters preferred other potential candidates to his eldest son, including Jair Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, recently elected senator, and São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas. Flávio Bolsonaro reportedly did not want to run because he thought a presidential campaign would make his life “hell” and he believed his re-election to the Senate was assured. But since Eduardo, his father’s “plan A,” now lives in the United States, the senator was chosen to run. Most observers agree that Flávio lacks his father’s charisma. He had a 24-year political career in which he passed very few laws as a state legislator and senator, and the only previous time he ran for executive office was for mayor of Rio de Janeiro in 2016, when he fainted during a televised debate and finished fourth. Thus, 48.21% of Brazilians voted for Flávio Bolsonaro on Sunday, which many analysts see as an anti-Lula vote and a vote for whoever Jair Bolsonaro would have chosen. Inácio believes that the fight over Bolsonaro’s legacy will also play out among family members who remain in Brazil, including Michelle and Bolsonaro’s other political children, senator-elect Carlos Bolsonaro and congressman-elect Jair Renan Bolsonaro, who publicly do so. “Michelle clearly has a political project of her own, but she is likely to face strong resistance from the two stepsons who are in Congress. It is only a matter of time before tensions between them grow,” said the political scientist.
