Bolsonaros Response to Lulas Presidential Win in Brazil: What to Know

Conservative presidential candidate Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro has fled Brazil and is yet to concede defeat after the Brazilian presidential election runoff, which he lost to incumbent Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva.Progressive leaders around the world, from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, congratulated Lula, 81, on Monday following the surprise victory.Lula trailed Bolsonaro in the first round but ended up winning by 4 million votes.It is the first time since 1988—when the constitution was changed after two decades of military rule that ended in 1985—that a candidate who was losing in the first round won in the second round.It is a case of déjà vu after Bolsonaro’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, challenged the results after the 2022 election, which Lula won by a slimmer margin.AccusationsFlavio Bolsonaro, 45, initially said he would seek to annul the election result, and has since specified that he will seek to have Lula’s victory disqualified for “an abuse of political and economic power.”“Lula injected nearly half a trillion reais in public money to carry out the largest vote-buying operation in the history of elections in Brazil,” Bolsonaro said in an Oct. 26 video posted to Instagram.Bolsonaro didn’t provide more details for the allegation against Lula. That may refer to a 15 percent ​increase in welfare payments for tens of millions of low-income Brazilians, in a measure passed last month that Bolsonaro described at the time as an “act of desperation.”The rise in the Bolsa Familia payment, from about 600 reais ($112.47) per month to 691 reais ($134.02), took effect on Oct. 19, six days before the second round of voting.Although he did not refer to it specifically, Bolsonaro’s stated intention to challenge the result suggests he’ll pursue an Electoral Judicial Investigation Claim, or Ação de Investigação Judicial Eleitoral (AIJE).An AIJE was successfully used against Jair Bolsonaro in June 2023, when Brazil’s electoral authority, the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral, barred him from running for office for eight years for abuse of political power, after he lost the 2022 election.AIJEs have also been used to overturn election results for a number of governors and mayors in Brazil, including Amazonas Gov. José Melo, whose removal was upheld in May 2017, over allegations of vote-buying in a 2014 election.Extended VotingThe Bolsonaro camp was also unhappy about the Brazilian Supreme Court’s last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours. Bolsonaro stated on Oct. 26 that if his party had won the election after a last-minute alteration of the rules, Lula’s party would not have accepted it.Bolsonaro’s campaign had also asked for extended voting in some states where heavy rain had affected voters.Brazilian Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro greets supporters upon his arrival from the United States at the International Airport in Brasilia, Brazil, on May 28, 2026. Sergio Lima/AFP via Getty ImagesBolsonaro called the ruling by ​Supreme ​Court ⁠Justice Cristiano Zanin “unacceptable.”Some Bolsonaro supporters have noted that Zanin, when he was a lawyer, had represented Lula when he was accused of corruption as part of the Operation Lava Jato (Car Wash) case. The sweeping investigation into a bribery and money-laundering operation linked to state-owned oil company Petrobras was launched in 2014 and led to Lula’s imprisonment in 2018, although his conviction was later annulled by Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court.An analysis of Superior Electoral Court voting machine records found that 34,330 votes, approximately 0.03 percent of the national total, were recorded after 5 p.m. on election day.Another legal avenue could be an Action to Challenge an Electoral Mandate, which has to be posted within 15 days of certification of the results.No Concession YetBolsonaro stood on the ticket of the Liberal Party, and its president, Valdemar Neto, recognized Lula’s victory in an Oct. 26 statement. However, the candidate himself has not conceded defeat and has not posted on X since Saturday evening.“If it is the will of God and the Brazilian people, let us build bridges, not walls. Let us build a Brazil for all Brazilians!” Bolsonaro wrote, a few hours before the polling stations opened. Bolsonaro said on Monday that he had been ordered to surrender his passport by the Brazilian federal police, and had been given 24 hours to comply.Instead, he held onto his passport and traveled by road to the frontier with Argentina, which he crossed on Tuesday night.Trump said, late on Tuesday, he approves of Bolsonaro coming to the United States.A few hours later, on Wednesday morning, Bolsonaro and his family flew into Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport on a Gulfstream G400 jet.A senior U.S. State Department official said on Tuesday that Bolsonaro would be granted a U.S. visa.“The State Department will issue visas to Flavio Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the United States,” the official told The Epoch Times.Argentina’s migration department said in a post on X on Wednesday that Bolsonaro and his family had crossed the border from Brazil and entered Misiones province on Tuesday night.The department said Bolsonaro, who had valid travel documents, boarded a private plane bound for Guayaquil in Ecuador late on Tuesday night.Asked on Tuesday about Bolsonaro being given sanctuary in the United States, Trump confirmed his approval.Bolsonaro alleged that the police request to surrender his passport was based on a ruling from Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes after his younger brother ​Eduardo Bolsonaro said on a podcast last week that Flavio Bolsonaro should leave the country ​if he lost the runoff.De Moraes oversaw the trial of Jair Bolsonaro, who was prosecuted and convicted over his role in an alleged coup, in January 2023, when his supporters stormed buildings in the capital, Brasilia, protesting the 2022 election results.De Moraes and his wife were sanctioned by the U.S. government in July 2025, and the sanctions were lifted in December 2025.In June, Eduardo Bolsonaro was convicted in absentia in Brazil of courting interference from the ​Trump administration in his father’s trial last year for a coup plot.“Any sentence without respect for due legal process is null, and after so many international defeats, even Moraes knows that,” Eduardo Bolsonaro said at the time.Meanwhile, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge, Justice Flavio Dino, has ordered a fresh investigation into possible use of foreign resources, services, or other benefits provided to Flavio Bolsonaro’s campaign, according to a court document published on Tuesday. “There are reports of a potential influx of foreign funds to benefit an election campaign, involving Rockbridge Network, which allegedly participated in discussions aimed at securing financial support for Mr. Flavio Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign—an effort facilitated by Mr. Tallis Gomes and Mr. Pedro Sang,” the document states.The Epoch Times has been unable to reach a representative of Rockbridge Network for comment on the allegations.If Lula’s victory is accepted, he will still have to cope with a Congress dominated by conservatives, who are likely to test his agenda in his fourth term.Investors in Brazil also seem to have turned against Lula’s government, with stocks tumbling on Monday and several analysts forecasting a market plunge.Election Looked ‘Rigged,’ Trump SaysTrump said he knows Lula and is not taking sides, “but it looked like another rigged election.”“It looked very bad to me,” Trump told reporters Oct. 26. “I just think it had a very bad look, the election, the way it was tabulated. The extension given was very strange.”He also commented on potential U.S. challenges to the election.“I’m not running Brazil. I’m running the U.S. I like Lula. I get along with him very well,” he said.“I know Flavio a little bit. I know the father very well. The father was treated really badly, I thought, but I wasn’t involved. That’s Brazil. It’s a different country.”Since returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump has repeatedly clashed with Lula’s government and imposed tariffs, and in July 2025, said the trial of Jair Bolsonaro was a “witch hunt.”Wang Junyi contributed to this report.