Brazil Court Orders Flávio Bolsonaro to Surrender Passports as His Party Accepts Lula’s Win
Brazilian Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro was ordered to surrender his passports and barred from leaving the country just hours after losing Sunday’s presidential runoff to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes issued the order Sunday night, canceling all of Bolsonaro’s Brazilian passports, including his diplomatic passport, and giving him 24 hours to hand over any others, G1 reported.
Moraes is the same justice who oversaw the prosecution of Bolsonaro’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted of plotting a coup to stay in power after losing the 2022 election.
The brief ruling also bars the senator from contacting Willer Tomaz, a lawyer friend linked to betting companies that federal police suspect were used to launder money.
Bolsonaro disclosed the order himself in a video posted before Brazilian media learned of it, The Guardian reported. He had just visited his father, who is under house arrest.
“Lula’s federal police were at his door and in the middle of the street, and I was served with an order to hand over my passports,” he said.
He said the order rested on a remark by his brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, on a U.S. podcast Friday that he should leave Brazil if he lost. “I never said that,” he said.
Bolsonaro, whose Senate term ends early next year, is also under investigation over money he was recorded seeking from a banker for a film about his father. He denies wrongdoing.
Annulment Push Dropped After Trump Weighs In
Bolsonaro had initially called for the election to be annulled, calling a two-hour extension of voting hours a “dirty trick.” He backed off Monday, The Washington Post reported, minutes after President Trump spoke.
“It looked like another rigged election, frankly. I didn’t take sides, but it was a terrible look for the world,” Trump told reporters. “Elections have to be indisputable.”
Trump did not say he would intervene. Bolsonaro instead said he would sue, accusing Lula of abusing the power of incumbency, a routine challenge that rarely succeeds.
“I wasn’t the one who lost; the system won,” Bolsonaro said, vowing to “organize the opposition to build a fortress against barbarism.” A family adviser told the Post, “Flávio has given up.”
Electoral court chief Kassio Nunes Marques, a Jair Bolsonaro appointee, said Monday the extension had not affected the result. Lula won 51.8% to 48.2%, a margin of about 4.4 million votes.
Monday night, his party said, “We recognise the presidential result proclaimed by the electoral court,” adding that “the questions raised need to be properly clarified through a balanced and democratic political debate.”
Bolsonaro himself had not formally conceded. The result checks Trump’s hopes for friendly governments across Latin America, where Lula is a vocal critic, The Associated Press noted.
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