After the election in Brazil: The losers acknowledge defeat

Brazil's election loser Flávio Bolsonaro backs down. While he had initially announced that he would not recognize the electoral defeat and called for the election to be annulled, the leader of his PL party appeared before the press on Monday: “We recognize the result of the presidential election as announced by the electoral court,” said Valdemar Costa Neto.

For his part, Bolsonaro posted a video on Instagram in which he declared that he would organize the opposition and “resist the chaos” that would spread in the country. What he apparently means above all is that the judicial authorities will resume prosecuting him after the end of the election campaign.

After the election results were published, Chief Federal Judge Alexandre de Moraes of the STF ruled that Bolsonaro had to surrender his passports - including a diplomatic one - and was not allowed to leave the country. The background is a new suspicion of money laundering in connection with betting platforms.

The federal police are investigating Bolsonaro, who is said to have maintained a joint account with the lawyer Willer Tomaz and received money from betting companies. Moraes had previously ordered the confiscation of Tomaz's assets up to a maximum value of 6 million reais, the equivalent of almost 1 million euros.

In the video, Bolsonaro portrays himself as a victim of “Lula’s federal police” who stopped him “on the street” when he was visiting his father. He doesn't understand why he has to give up his passports since he never planned to leave the country.

In fact, Flávio never announced that he would flee the country if he lost the election. His younger brother Eduardo, a former member of parliament, left Brazil in March 2025. At the beginning of October, Alexandre de Moraes issued an arrest warrant against him and decided that Eduardo would have to serve his sentence of four months and two months in a semi-open prison system. At the same time, he canceled all of the former politician's passports.

Eduardo was convicted of coercion during his father's trial for articulating punitive tariffs against Brazil together with the US government. He has had a green card in the USA since July 2025, which also allows him to apply for visas for family members. Before the runoff election, Eduardo advised his brother in a podcast that he should do the same if he lost. He also jokingly said that Donald Trump could send the marines to Brazil in this case.