Brazil: Flavio Bolsonaro flees with his family to the US

Flavio Bolsonaro has fled Brazil and is on a flight to Florida in the United States. After hours of speculation, confirmation came from the US authorities to the Reuters news agency. According to CNN Brazil, his wife and two daughters are travelling with him. It was supposed to be the day of Lula’s celebrations – his birthday. The elderly Brazilian leader turned 81 just yesterday. No more parades, but cakes and drinks with his team in Brasília. The last few days were heart-stopping, followed by the long-awaited drop in adrenaline that brings a sense of calm. The announcement this morning by Flavio Bolsonaro’s party has reinforced the belief in an institutional approach and an electoral outcome without any lingering fallout: the Liberal Party has recognised Lula’s victory.

Then came the dramatic twist. In the early afternoon there were a few rumours, then, as the evening wore on, the situation became clearer, albeit surreal. Some aides to the former far-right presidential candidate confessed to the newspaper *Folha de São Paulo*, one of the most influential, that Flavio was on a flight to the United States. The sequence of events: Bolsonaro failed to comply with the court order to hand over his passport. Judge Alexandre de Moraes of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) had given Bolsonaro 24 hours on Monday to hand over his passports due to his alleged involvement in a money-laundering scheme linked to online gambling. Following his failure to comply with the order, the police invalidated Bolsonaro’s Brazilian travel documents, including his diplomatic passport as a senator. Today, Flavio did not turn up to hand over his passport. Shortly afterwards, the first rumours of his escape began to circulate: his right-hand man and election campaign manager, Rogério Marinho, denied to some media outlets that he had fled. But as the hours passed, Marinho went missing.

It should be noted that Judge Moraes justified the concern that the defeated candidate might leave Brazil by citing certain statements made a few days earlier by his brother Eduardo, who lives in the United States; he had stated that Flavio too would have to move to North America.

Flavio’s reaction was sharp; on the eve of Sunday’s vote, denied any intention of leaving the country. “My place is with the Brazilian people, tackling the country’s challenges.” That is not how things turned out. His flight may also have been prompted by the new legal case involving Flávio Bolsonaro before the Federal Supreme Court (CSF). Judge Flávio Dino has initiated proceedings, asking the Federal Police (PF) to investigate whether the defeated presidential candidate’s election campaign received illegal funding from abroad. Dino took action after receiving complaints from both Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) and Renan Santos, one of the candidates defeated in the first round of the presidential elections. Santos is the leader of the right-wing Mission party, which is highly critical of Bolsonaro’s policies.

Even before the elections, Flavio Bolsonaro was already under investigation, this time for his links with the banker Daniel Vorcaro, who is currently in prison for having been at the centre of the biggest financial scandal in Brazilian history. The police intercepted communications in which Flavio asked Vorcaro for 134 million reais (around 25 million euros), allegedly to fund a biographical film about his father. The police suspect that part of that money was diverted to fund his brother Eduardo’s stay in the United States, where he has long been working as a lobbyist at the White House, trying to persuade the Trump administration to adopt trade measures aimed at weakening Lula’s government. A few weeks ago, Flavio Bolsonaro had challenged Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes by posting a photo of his Italian passport on social media and inviting the judge to ask the authorities in Rome to have it revoked – confident that this would not be possible.