Flavio Bolsonaro’s great escape: Is this the beginning of the end for ‘Bolsonarism’?

Flavio Bolsonaro’s great escape: Is this the beginning of the end for ‘Bolsonarism’? The Brazilian election results had barely been announced before the defeated presidential candidate, Flavio Bolsonaro, packed his bags and fled with his family to the United States. The move may have dealt a serious blow to the already tarnished family brand, but does it spell the end for “Bolsonarism”? A few hours after touching down in Miami on Wednesday, Flavio Bolsonaro issued a statement declaring he was the “true president” of Brazil. He claimed he had been the victim of an electoral coup staged by Brazil’s Supreme Court and President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who won last weekend’s election by more than 4 million votes. That, in Bolsonaro’s view, left him with no other choice but to flee. Read moreFlavio Bolsonaro declares himself Brazil's 'true' leader after landing in Miami According to several news outlets, the Bolsonaro family had already left Brazil on Tuesday. Their journey took them through both Argentina and Ecuador before they got on the private jet that would eventually fly them across the continent and keep the embattled far-right politician at arm’s length from Brazilian justice. A family tradition Although Bolsonaro’s whereabouts, and the destination for his escape, were initially shrouded in mystery, his ally US President Donald Trump appeared to almost have been waiting for him, greeting him with a US visa more or less the moment he arrived. Bolsonaro currently faces a string of investigations in his homeland for suspected money laundering, corruption, and for having illegal accepted campaign funding from a donor network connected to US Vice President JD Vance. By choosing the US exile route, however, Bolsonaro could deal a devastating blow to “Bolsonarism” – the macho ideology championed by his father, ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, and which glorifies the strong man who stops at nothing when the going gets tough. But Bolsonaro junior is hardly the first in the family to have sought refuge in the US as soon as his political fortunes start to fade. His father did so in 2022 – just two days before Lula was inaugurated for a third presidential mandate – after facing a number of criminal probes. And last year, his brother Eduardo went into “voluntary” US exile after accusations he had sought to convince Washington to impose sanctions on Lula’s Brazil. Fiona Macauley, a Brazil expert at the University of Bradford, labelled the escapes, and especially the latest one, as “very negative” for the Bolsonaro family brand. “It’s an incredible admission of guilt,” she said, adding that many of the people who voted for him are likely to be disappointed. “If you were one of the nearly 60 million people who voted for Bolsonaro, you would now be feeling very bitter about the lack of courage.” In other words, the values defining Bolsonarism become hard to defend when the Bolsonaros’ systematically run to Trump for help every time they face any kind of legal woes. Larissa Peixoto Gomes, a specialist in Brazilian politics at the University of Edinburgh, said it looks “really bad”, especially to undecided voters “who were key” in the elections. Shadow government in the works? Indeed the Bolsonaro family's multiple escapes make president-elect Lula, who has himself been subject to investigations and even served time in prison before finally being acquitted, look even stronger. “It makes him look good,” Chris Lyon, a Brazil expert at the University of Birmingham, said. “Because when he faced corruption charges, he stayed, he didn't run away.” With the elder Bolsonaro currently under house arrest (where he is serving a 27-year sentence), and two of his sons risking lengthy prison terms if they return to Brazil, it has become increasingly difficult for the family to exercise its political influence. But experts say they could potentially set up a parallel or shadow government in the US, mimicking the Cuban or Venezuelan opposition in exile models. However, Janaina Maldonado, a Brazilian politics expert with the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), said that “the Brazilian scenario is completely different from what we had in Venezuela and what we have in Cuba”, making both her and her peers very sceptical that such plans would actually work. Not least because much of the international community – save Trump who suggested the election was “rigged” – has already recognised Lula as the legitimate winner. Another potential hurdle is the Brazilian diaspora. Macauley said that in contrast to the Cubans and Venezuelans in the US, most Brazilians living there are economic migrants and are not looking for a leader to rally behind. The Bolsonaro reserves This week's escape hardly spells the end for Bolsonaro politics being played out in Brazil. The Bolsonaro family is big and still very influential. “You've still got four Bolsonaros in the national elected office,” Lyon said. The most prominent of them is Michelle Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro’s wife who was recently handed a senator seat in Brasilia, as well as the couple’s second oldest son Carlos – also known as the family’s social media mastermind – who is a senator in Santa Catarina. But there are more. The youngest son, Renan, is a federal deputy, and so is Bolsonaro senior's brother, Renato. Corneel Weyers, a Brazil expert at Sciences Po’s Centre for International Studies (CERI) in Paris, said that while Carlos is expected to “carry on the Bolsonaro legacy”, Michelle has equally become a “major player”. “She has a lot of influence and visibility with parts of the ‘Bolsonarista’ electoral coalition, especially among women and evangelicals.” The day after the Brazilian election, the president of Bolsonaro’s party even had a meeting with her to discuss the party’s future. Maldonado said the Bolsonaros who have just entered the political arena are likely to play the “political persecution” card going forward, hoping to galvanise the radicalised supporters who already subscribe to that idea even more. “This part of the electorate is not minor,” she said. Flavio Bolsonaro “got 59 million votes, and these people have a lot to say still”. This article was adapted from the original in French by Louise Nordstrom. Keywords for this article