Rio De Janeiro, 26 October. Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, who lost the run-off of Brazil's presidential election, said Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes had barred him from leaving the country and ordered him to surrender his passports, called this "a clear attempt to intimidate" him and promised to lead the opposition to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government, Anadolu Agency reported.
According to Bolsonaro, federal police officers served him with the order after he visited his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest. He said the decision was issued on Sunday evening, shortly after Lula's victory was declared, and was based on a statement by his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro on 23 October that Flavio would have to leave Brazil if he lost. "I never thought about leaving the country," the senator said; he promised to hand over his passports but to challenge the ruling. The text of the order has not been published, and the legal grounds for the ban are unclear.
Flavio Bolsonaro is himself under investigation for alleged corruption and money laundering in the financing of a biopic about his father, charges he denies. He has not conceded defeat and repeated that he would seek to annul the result: in his view, extending polling hours on Sunday favoured Lula, although he too had asked for voting to be extended. "To withstand the chaos, I'm going to organise the opposition," he said.
Reports of his next steps diverge. The Liberal Party, on whose ticket he ran, conceded his defeat, according to TASS, while the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo wrote that under pressure from allies Bolsonaro had dropped his demand to annul the election; in his video address, however, he spoke of seeking to overturn the result. US President Donald Trump, an ally of the Bolsonaro family, called the election "terrible".
What it means: The defeated candidate does not accept the result, but his own party is distancing itself from that position; the court, for its part, has stopped him from leaving the country while the investigation and the dispute over the election continue.
Who benefits: Lula, who benefits from a split in his rival's camp, where the party concedes and the candidate does not. Flavio Bolsonaro, who claims the role of opposition leader the day after the vote. For markets, which fell after Lula's victory, a drawn-out dispute adds uncertainty.
Background: Lula won the run-off with 51.8% of the vote against Bolsonaro's 48.2%, securing a fourth presidential term. The senator's father, Jair Bolsonaro, also refused to accept the result after losing the 2022 election.
We have also reported that Flavio Bolsonaro refused to recognise Lula's victory.
