Flavio Bolsonaro, who lost Brazil's election, reaches Miami and calls himself country's "legal leader"

The results of Brazil's presidential election have set off a stir in international politics. Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the losing candidate and son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, has left the country and reached Miami in the United States. On arrival, he took a hard line and declared himself Brazil's "legal leader".

Flavio alleges that the country's Supreme Court and the newly elected president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, together rigged the election and kept him from power. According to the official results announced by Brazil's electoral authority, Lula won by a margin of about 4.5 million votes. Flavio Bolsonaro has nonetheless flatly refused to concede defeat.

Brazil's Supreme Court had ordered his passport seized because an investigation against him is under way. He left the country in defiance of that order. He says Argentine President Javier Milei helped him on the journey. He has also specially thanked US President Donald Trump after his American visa was approved.

After reaching the US, Flavio posted an open letter on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), which caused considerable uproar. In the first draft of the letter, he described himself as "the newly elected president of Brazil". The post was deleted shortly afterwards and a new letter was posted, in which he called himself "the legal and official leader of Brazil".

In his message he claimed, "My 60 million supporters and the whole of Brazil's people know well who the real leader of the country is." Attacking the Lula government directly, he said those who stole votes and committed fraud in the election were part of an organised criminal gang and had imposed a dictatorship on the country.

Although Flavio has claimed fraud in the election, he has not presented any concrete evidence for it. His main objection is that Supreme Court judges extended voting time by two hours on Sunday, and that Lula's party benefited from this. Lula's party, for its part, had alleged that attempts were made to stop its voters in the north-eastern states from voting. Bolsonaro's party had sought the extension in the southern states, citing rain.

According to an analysis by Pedro Bergas, a professor at the Insper institute, fewer than 35,000 votes were cast across the country in the two extra hours. That is only 0.03 per cent of the total votes cast, which is negligible. The extension therefore made no difference to the outcome. Political and legal experts say that, given these figures, Flavio's demand to annul the election has almost no chance of standing in court.

Flavio's move is being seen as following his father's path. After losing to Lula in the 2022 election, former president Jair Bolsonaro also went to the US before leaving office. After he returned to Brazil, he was found guilty of plotting a coup and sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Flavio has made it clear that he has not fled the country but has gone abroad for the safety of himself and his family. The incident has raised fears of strain in diplomatic ties between the US and Brazil. Brazil holds the world's second-largest reserves of critical minerals. President Lula has accused the US of trying to interfere in Brazil's politics by shielding the Bolsonaro family, while the US administration has completely denied the allegations.