Brazil's defeated right-wing presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro insisted Wednesday he is his country's rightful leader after arriving in the United States to start a self-imposed exile. Bolsonaro's defiance on fleeing to Florida signaled continued upheaval for Brazil, where leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a dramatic runoff election Sunday. FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks with Fabio de Sa e Silva, Associate Professor of International Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He says that an attempt by Bolsonaro to turn a domestic dispute into a wider international issue "will not be successful", explaining that he is likely going to be "losing the grip of the opposition, there is a vacuum now that others will seek to occupy" and that it's unlikely that the United States will "get involved into questioning the results of the Brazilian election".

Brazil's defeated far-right presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro insisted on Wednesday he is his country's rightful leader after arriving in the United States to start a self-imposed exile. Bolsonaro's defiance on fleeing to Florida signalled continued upheaval for Brazil, where leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a dramatic run-off election on Sunday.

Senator Flavio Bolsonaro received on Monday endorsements ​from Ronaldo Caiado and Romeu Zema, two right-wing politicians who ran against him in Sunday's first-round vote, ​for ‌the runoff against President Luiz ⁠Inacio Lula da Silva later this month. Speaking with FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney, Anthony Pereira, Executive Director of the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University, says that "Lula's path to victory lies in mobilising voters who didn't vote in the first round" while Flavio Bolsonaro "will probably benefit from the voters who voted for other right-wing candidates and who will simply migrate to him, so it looks a lot easier for Flavio to win the second round than it does for Lula".