Flávio Bolsonaro declares himself the “true president-elect of Brazil”

Far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who fled to the United States two days after losing the presidential election, declared himself this Wednesday the “true president-elect of Brazil,” in an open letter he released on his social media.

“I want to say, not only to my 60 million voters, but also to the Brazilian people, that I am the president-elect and that the criminals who stole the elections in Brazil are part of a criminal organization that established a tyranny,” he stated in the letter.

Flávio also asked the international community not to “normalize what is happening in Brazil,” even though the election results have been recognized by all Brazilian institutions, both pro-government and opposition, including the Liberal Party (PL), which launched his presidential bid.

The eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro landed this Wednesday in Miami (Florida, USA) after leaving Brazil via Argentina with his family to head to the United States, where he will be welcomed by the government of Donald Trump, his father’s ally.

“I want to make it clear: I did not flee Brazil, I left for Brazil; I left an exceptional regime to be able to be the leader my people deserve,” noted the former candidate, who compared himself to the Frenchman Charles de Gaulle, the Cuban José Martí, and the Venezuelan opposition figures Juan Guaidó, Edmundo González Urrutia, and María Corina Machado.

In the letter, Flávio, defeated in the second round of the elections against the current ruler, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, thanked the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, for his “courage” and “sense of justice,” and Trump for welcoming him into the North American country.

The ultra-right senator, as the Republican leader insinuated, denounced, without presenting any kind of evidence, that there was “electoral fraud” in last Sunday’s elections, in which he obtained 48% of the votes, compared to Lula’s 52%, which translated into a difference of more than four million votes.

Why does Flávio Bolsonaro claim fraud in Lula’s victory?

According to him, the “illegitimate” and “illegal” decision by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin, Lula’s former personal lawyer, to extend voting hours by two hours “allowed Lula to add more than 10 million votes between the first and second rounds.”

Zanin extended the voting hours at the request of Lula’s campaign following a series of “incidents” in public transport in some Brazilian cities. Flávio’s team also requested the extension, but for a different reason, due to the heavy rains that fell in some regions of the country.

All in all, according to the systems of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the body that arbitrates Brazilian electoral processes, in those two hours only about 35,000 votes were registered and the difference between Lula and Flávio was four million ballots.

Bolsonaro’s son also denounced that “throughout the entire campaign, there was an abuse of political and economic power, as well as the use of public machinery in favor of reelection.”

“These are serious acts, expressly prohibited by law, which justify the annulment of Lula’s candidacy,” he added.

He also declared himself a victim of “political persecution” after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered him on Monday to surrender his passports within 24 hours, as part of an investigation into alleged money laundering.

Flávio failed to comply with that decision and the next day fled to Argentina to fly to the United States on a private plane that stopped in Ecuador, in the company of his wife, Fernanda Bolsonaro, and his two daughters.

“It was not my intention to leave my homeland, but I know exactly where this is going to lead. This is the classic manual for any coup d’état,” he wrote.