The question gripping Brazil: Has Trump ally Flávio Bolsonaro fled to the US?

In the end, not even Brazil’s far right had the stomach to contest another election outcome. In the immediate aftermath of his defeat to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday, senator Flávio Bolsonaro said he would call for the results to be annulled.

His argument centred on the two-hour extension to voting granted by the supreme court judge who previously served as Lula’s personal lawyer. The judge was responding to a demand by Lula’s Workers Party, which accused bolsonarista-controlled municipalities of restricting bus services in an effort to suppress its vote.

The problem for Flávio was that his campaign had asked for its own extension because of heavy rain. Also, Brazil’s fully automated voting system, which is able to compute more than 128 million votes across a territory larger than the continental United States in just over two hours, is able to track when these are cast. So we know approximately 35,000 voters took advantage of the extension. That is 0.027 per cent of the total cast, and statistically irrelevant to Lula’s 4.4 million-vote winning margin.

Flávio’s refusal to recognise defeat might just be a traditional Bolsonaro reflex. His father Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting to overturn his defeat to Lula four years ago in a botched coup.

Even when he won the presidency in 2018, he contested the result, claiming his margin of victory was bigger.

Flávio might also on Sunday have been attempting to distract from what was a political disaster. The election was there to be won. Lula went into the campaign with dangerously high disapproval ratings for an incumbent. Flávio won the first round, and never before has its winner not gone on to become president.

But arrogance set in. He began to focus on what he imagined was his incoming administration. As Brazilians put it, he was already strutting around in high heels. Brazilians are quick to cut down to size anyone they think is getting ahead of themselves.

His inexperience and lack of political nous ended up exposed as Lula roared back. Worse, Flávio’s character – or lack of it- had been a central theme of the campaign’s closing stretch. Even his allies want to move on quickly from this humiliation – the Bolsonaros’ own Liberal Party having since recognised his defeat.

Now the focus has switched to Flávio’s whereabouts, amid rumours he has fled Brazil.

On Monday, a supreme court judge ordered him to surrender his passport, citing two ongoing corruption investigations into him.

The following day, police in Brazil said they had cancelled his passports after he failed to comply with an order to surrender the documents.

Federal officers were reportedly checking border crossings to establish if Bolsonaro may have travelled to neighbouring Argentina.

However, reports emerged on Tuesday evening that he had left the country for the United ‌States.

Right-wing influencer Paulo Figueiredo, who serves as a sort of unofficial spokesperson for the Bolsonaro family, declined to answer questions about Bolsonaro’s whereabouts.

“After months of intense work that has been unfairly thwarted, I am not in the mood to speak to the press,” he ‌said in a message. “If I ⁠have any comments to make on any matter, I will get in touch.”

Eduardo Bolsonaro, Bolsonaro’s younger brother who lives in the US, said in advance of the vote that an election loss would require a move.

“If my brother does not win, I’m ​in favour that he would leave the country,” he told podcaster ​Steven Crowder this month.

The US embassy in Brazil did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bolsonaro’s lawyer also declined to comment.

Flávio’s father also ⁠went to the United States after ​refusing to concede losing to Lula in 2022.

Whether Flávio has fled or is merely lying low may soon become clear. The more troubling reality is that the saga has exposed a crisis of credibility that extends far beyond one defeated politician.

It is an indication of just how serious the institutional crisis Lula will be faced with during his fourth term that the judge who issued the order for Flávio to surrender his passports is Alexandre de Moraes.

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He is among the members of the court deeply implicated in one of the scandals Flávio is being investigated in, that of the large BancoMaster fraud.

The far right hates Moraes because he drove the prosecution of the 2022 coup plotters. This made him a hero for many on the left. Some of these might now cheer on his hounding of Flávio.

But for many Brazilians, not just on the right, Moraes’ authority is shot, his corruption too obvious.

Flávio faces serious accusations of wrongdoing, just like too many of Brazil’s top judges. Restoring confidence in the justice system will be one of Lula’s biggest challenges.

With four of the supreme court’s 11 seats to be filled before his fourth term ends, he has a chance to drive reform.

Without it, public faith in democracy’s institutions will continue to corrode. And in Brazil, this has been a driver of the rise of the far right.