Bolsonaro says he is Brazil’s true leader

FLIGHT TO MIAMI: Flavio Bolsonaro in the US said he would lead the opposition from there, although his party did not back up his claims that the election was stolen

Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro on Wednesday said that he is his country’s rightful leader after fleeing to the US to start a self-imposed exile.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday won a runoff election, defeating Bolsonaro.

“I am the elected president and the criminals who stole Brazil’s election are part of a criminal organization that has established a tyranny,” Bolsonaro wrote on X, slamming “electoral fraud.”

Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, top, exits a plane at Miami Opa-Locka Executive Airport on Wednesday.

Photo: AP

“I will lead the opposition from here,” he said.

In a subsequent statement, he said he is the “leader,” rather than “president.”

Bolsonaro, 45, touched down earlier on Wednesday in a private jet at Opa-Locka Executive Airport near Miami.

Rogerio Marinho, the leader of Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party in the Brazilian Senate, told reporters in Brasilia that he was in “solidarity” with the former candidate, describing him as a “political exile.”

However, he distanced himself from Bolsonaro’s statement, and refused to back up Bolsonaro’s claims of electoral fraud.

“The Liberal Party cannot make that claim,” he said. “There is no evidence of that.”

Bolsonaro “is an expression of the right in Brazil today ... he calls himself a leader and it’s true: he’s a leader,” Marinho told reporters.

US President Donald Trump said that Brazil’s election was “very strange,” but told reporters he “won’t get involved” in Bolsonaro’s claims.

Details of how Bolsonaro, who was accompanied by his wife and daughters, made it to US soil are still emerging.

He is under investigation in his home country over alleged corruption and money laundering. With his parliamentary immunity about to expire, he was ordered to surrender his passports, but left anyway, reaching the US via Argentina and Ecuador.

A police source told reporters that Bolsonaro’s Brazilian and diplomatic passports had been canceled, but the senator has also held Italian nationality since 2023, Italian documents showed.

The US Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the Bolsonaro family members were inspected and cleared “with applicable immigration laws and procedures.”

The travel ban was issued by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

Lula, who won Sunday’s election with 51.8 percent of the vote, called Bolsonaro’s departure a “shameful” act.

“A person who sneaks out of their country must have something to hide,” he said in Brasilia during his 81st birthday celebration on Tuesday.

However, Brazilian police on Wednesday said that he was not considered a fugitive.

The most high-profile fraud case against Bolsonaro in Brazil centers on the unreleased biopic Dark Horse starring US actor Jim Caviezel as Bolsonaro’s father, Jair.

In May, the outlet Intercept Brasil revealed audio recordings in which Flavio Bolsonaro negotiated approximately US$24 million to finance the film with banker Daniel Vorcaro, who is jailed over one of Brazil’s biggest-ever fraud cases.

In July, the Supreme Court ordered a probe into the film’s financing, and whether it involved corruption, money laundering or the illegal movement of currency.