Brazilian police say they have cancelled the passports of Flávio Bolsonaro, the defeated right-wing presidential candidate, after he failed to turn them over as ordered by the country’s Supreme Court.
On Monday, the high court ordered Bolsonaro to surrender his passports to police within 24 hours as part of an investigation into alleged money laundering. The senator has denied any wrongdoing.
At the time of the order, Bolsonaro said he had no intention of leaving Brazil. He insisted he would remain in the country to lead the opposition against his left-wing rival, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
But the deadline came and went without the documents being handed over, fueling speculation that the senator may have already left the country.
According to a police source who spoke with BBC News Brasil, federal officers are now checking border crossings to determine whether Bolsonaro may have traveled into neighboring Argentina.
Argentine authorities, however, told the BBC they have no record of Bolsonaro entering their country through any border crossing.
The passport fight is only the latest legal headache for the 45-year-old senator. Bolsonaro was already under investigation over alleged corruption tied to the financing of a film about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro.
The elder Bolsonaro, a close ally of the American conservative movement, was convicted of plotting a coup and is currently under house arrest.
The legal pressure on the Bolsonaro family intensified again Tuesday, when Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered police to investigate Flávio Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign over allegations that it received foreign funding.
The flurry of court actions comes just days after a bruising election night for the conservative candidate.
On Sunday, Bolsonaro was defeated by Lula in a presidential runoff that he had been widely expected to win. Opinion polls had shown him narrowly ahead of the incumbent, and analysts noted that his victory in the first round of voting on Oct. 4 suggested he was on track to claim the presidency.
Bolsonaro jumped out to an early lead as ballots were counted, but the veteran leftist overtook him as the night went on. The result made history, as Lula became the first presidential candidate in Brazil to overcome a first-round loss and win in the second round.
Lula, who now heads into a fourth term, captured 51.79% of the vote, while Bolsonaro took 48.21%.
Despite trailing by roughly 4.4 million votes, Bolsonaro has refused to concede and is calling for the election to be annulled.
The senator argues he was put at a disadvantage when voting hours were extended by two hours on Election Day. He blasted the extension, which was ordered by a Supreme Court justice, as a “dirty trick.”
The extension had been requested by both Bolsonaro’s party and Lula’s.
Bolsonaro’s own party has not joined his effort to overturn the result. The Liberal Party has accepted Lula’s victory, though it said the decision to extend voting “merits investigation.”
With his passports now cancelled and investigators searching border records, questions are mounting over Bolsonaro’s whereabouts and what comes next for Brazil’s conservative movement as Lula prepares to begin another term in power.
