In Brazil right now, running against the socialist government can land you in court, and then in prison.
Just ask the Bolsonaro family.
Jair Bolsonaro was Brazil's conservative president from 2019 to 2022. People called him the "Trump of the Tropics," and Brazil's left hated him for the same reasons ours hates Trump. After Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a longtime socialist, took back power in 2022, Bolsonaro was put on trial and sentenced to more than 27 years in prison. Because of his health, he's serving it under house arrest. President Trump has called the case against him "drummed up prosecutions."
In June, Bolsonaro's son Eduardo was convicted and sentenced to more than four years.
This month, another son, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, challenged Lula for the presidency. Ten days before the election, Brazil's Supreme Court opened a case against him too.
The judge on Flávio's case is Alexandre de Moraes, the same justice who oversaw his father's trial. De Moraes is the judge who shut down X across all of Brazil in 2024 when Elon Musk wouldn't follow his orders, and who blocked Rumble the next year. He's so notorious that the United States sanctioned him. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused de Moraes of an "oppressive campaign of censorship" and "politicized prosecutions."
Then came election day.
Lula went into it with most Brazilians unhappy with him. In September, 51% disapproved of the job he was doing, and only 31% called his government good or great.
Think about why Lula's campaign asked for those two extra hours. Campaigns don't ask for more time unless they believe it will help them. Two hours on election day is time to push turnout in your strongholds, send out buses, and knock on doors after the other side has already planned around the normal closing time. It's also two more hours of voting after observers and poll workers have been on their feet all day.
Lula's campaign asked for that advantage, and the judge who handed it to them was Lula's own former lawyer.
Imagine the reaction here if a judge who used to be Joe Biden's personal attorney kept the polls open late on election day because Biden's campaign asked him to. Republicans would call it vote manipulation, and they'd be right.
That's what happened in Brazil. When the counting was done, the unpopular incumbent was declared the winner by 4.4 million votes.
Flávio refused to concede. "I watched in horror as electoral fraud occurred before my eyes," he wrote. It's hard to blame him. If an American candidate's former lawyer, sitting as a judge, kept the polls open late for his old client, nobody here would call that a fair election.
Days later, de Moraes ordered Flávio to hand over his passports. Flávio called it the "classic playbook for any coup d'état." He had watched this court imprison his father and convict his brother, and he wasn't going to let a sanctioned judge trap him in Brazil.
On Tuesday night, Flávio, his wife, and their two daughters crossed into Argentina. They flew to Ecuador early Wednesday morning and landed in Miami a few hours later.
"Flávio Bolsonaro is well, in security and resting with his family," said Paulo Figueiredo, a family ally who already lives in the U.S.
The State Department approved visas for the family. President Trump, who faced indictment after indictment while running against the party in power, said Brazil's election was "really strange, and I thought it was terrible."
Lula says Flávio should have stayed and cleared his name. "I regret that he left Brazil, because he could have stayed here and proven that the accusations are not true," he said, calling the departure "a shameful act."
Lula has some experience with this himself. He was convicted of corruption in 2017 and spent 580 days in prison. In 2021, Brazil's Supreme Court threw out his convictions on procedural grounds, without ever finding him innocent. He walked out, ran for president, and won. The lawyer who got him out was Cristiano Zanin, the same man who gave Lula's campaign extra time at the polls this month.
Jailing the people who run against you is what authoritarian governments do. In four years, Brazil's government has imprisoned a former president, convicted his son, and gone after the man who just challenged Lula.
Flávio is safe in Florida now with his wife and daughters. Brazil has canceled his passports, and his father is still under house arrest. Flávio says he'll lead Brazil's opposition from the United States.