Flávio Bolsonaro seeks Lula ticket disqualification as court orders passport surrender and bars him from leaving Brazil

Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro said Monday that he would seek the disqualification of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s winning electoral ticket over what he described as abuses during the presidential runoff, while separately confirming that he had been ordered to surrender his passports and was barred from leaving the country.

“The law must apply to everyone. The competition must be fair and equal. That is not what happened,” Bolsonaro said in a video posted after his defeat. “It wasn’t me who lost. It was the system that won.”

Bolsonaro said he would challenge Lula’s ticket over alleged irregularities surrounding Sunday’s vote, including the decision by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin to extend voting in some polling places. He has not presented evidence showing that the measures altered Lula’s 4.4 million-vote margin.

In the same video, Bolsonaro said Federal Police officers served him with an order requiring him to hand over his ordinary and diplomatic passports and prohibiting him from leaving Brazil.

The travel restriction was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes in a separate investigation involving Bolsonaro and lawyer Willer Tomaz. Brazilian reporting says the case concerns suspected money laundering and financial irregularities; Bolsonaro has not been convicted in that investigation.

Bolsonaro also said he would use his party’s strength in Congress to resist Lula’s next term, declaring that the Chamber of Deputies and Senate would become a “fortress” against what he called the “barbarism” of another four years under Lula.

Lula won Sunday’s runoff with 51.79% of valid votes to Bolsonaro’s 48.21% and is due to begin a fourth non-consecutive presidential term in January.