MIAMI (AP) — Defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro and his family arrived in Miami Wednesday after refusing to concede the election. to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and fled the country.
In a circuitous trip, Bolsonaro left for Argentina on Tuesday with his wife and two daughters, then flew to Ecuador, according to Argentinian officials and flight data. The 45-year-old senator, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, visited the White House in May and toured the Trump administration. US visas approved for him and his family this week.
Bolsonaro’s father, Jair Bolsonaro, too, fled to Florida after losing the 2022 presidential election to Lula before returning to Brazil three months later.
Flávio Bolsonaro is under investigation by Brazil’s Supreme Court, accused of corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. The court ordered him to surrender his regular and diplomatic passports by Tuesday at noon. It remains unclear whether he complied with the request, but allies said late Tuesday that he also had an Italian passport.
Bolsonaro arrives in Miami
Dressed casually in a dark polo shirt and flanked by his wife and two daughters, Bolsonaro stepped off the plane shortly after landing in Miami around 9:30 a.m. EDT. Florida is home to the largest population of Brazilians in the United States
The family fled Brazil on Tuesday evening, entered Argentina through a border checkpoint and quickly boarded a private charter plane, Argentine immigration authorities said.
Flightradar24 showed that the plane carrying Bolsonaro landed in Guayaquil, Ecuador, around 4 a.m. local time, then took off minutes later for Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport.
Before the family arrived in Florida, Lula, who turned 81 on Tuesday, spoke to dozens of supporters outside the presidential residence in Brasilia.
“I regret that he left Brazil, because he could have stayed here and proven that the accusations are not true,” Lula said. “This act of leaving Brazil is shameful.”
Bolsonaro’s route through Argentina could escalate diplomatic tensions between Lula’s government and Argentine President Javier Milei, another Trump ally who traveled to Brazil to help Bolsonaro’s campaign.
Milei did not comment directly on Bolsonaro’s defeat, but Juan Pablo Carreira, a presidential spokesperson, said on social media that Milei’s administration had saved Bolsonaro “from the clutches of communism, which seeks to imprison all opposition figures.”
Brazilian government officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Trump questions Brazilian election results
Trump said Bolsonaro was welcome in the United States, calling him and his family “good people.”
“The election was really strange, and I thought it was terrible,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on Tuesday. Earlier, Trump also said, without evidence, that the election was “rigged.”
Leaders from around the world and the Organization of American States approved the result and congratulated Lula, who was re-elected by a margin of about 4.4 million votes in the second and final round.
The United States has imposed double-digit sanctions on Brazil, which has Latin America’s largest economy. Lula defended Brazil’s long tradition of non-alignment, cultivating ties with competing powers. His government deepened trade links with China and sought greater global influence through BRICSa group of emerging economies.
Bolsonaro visited his father, under house arrest, before leaving Brazil
Brazil’s Supreme Court on Monday ordered the defeated candidate to return his Brazilian passports. In a video, he said he received the order outside the house where his father is serving a 27-year prison sentence. under house arrest for his attempted coup d’état following his 2022 electoral defeat against Lula.
A Brazilian diplomat, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, told The Associated Press that Bolsonaro used an Italian passport to enter Argentina and that Brazilians leaving the country through a land border were not subject to scrutiny by Brazilian authorities.
The diplomat said Brazilian federal police did not monitor Bolsonaro when he left his home in Brasilia because the Supreme Court had not issued an arrest warrant against him.
Flávio Bolsonaro said in a video Monday that he was trying to organize opposition to the election results among his congressional colleagues. His eight-year term as senator expires on January 31, 2027. His Liberal Party released a statement saying it accepted the election results.
Brazil’s Supreme Court is investigating Bolsonaro for allegedly using a sports betting company to launder fraudulent deductions from government pensions paid to the elderly. In another case, he is accused of accepting millions of dollars from a disgraced banker. Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing.
___
Mauricio Savarese reported from Sao Paulo. Associated Press journalists Eléonore Hughes in Rio de Janeiro and Debora Rey in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
Gn headline
