Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is challenging the result of the presidential election he lost at the end of October, Reuters news agency reports. He wants votes from some electronic voting machines to be declared invalid because there would have been malfunctions.
However, the victory of the left-wing candidate Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva has already been endorsed by the TSE electoral council and recognized by key politicians in Brazil and international allies. With that, Bolsonaro’s complaint seems to have little chance, but it may inspire his hard core supporters to new protests.
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Electoral council president Alexandre de Moraes has demanded Bolsonaro provide a comprehensive report on both the first and second rounds within 24 hours and substantiate his accusations. Otherwise, the Electoral Council will reject the complaint. In the first round, Bolsonaro’s party made a significant gain in seats in the Brazilian parliament.
‘Outdated voting computers’
In the decisive second round between Lula and Bolsonaro on October 30, Bolsonaro’s coalition says it has seen “signs of unsolvable malfunctions” in some voting machines. This has created ‘uncertainty’ and makes it ‘impossible to validate the results’.
In the months leading up to the elections, the far-right Bolsonaro continued to come up with conspiracy theories about possible election fraud and referred to outdated voting computers, among other things.
After his election defeat with 50.9 percent of the vote for Lula and 49.1 percent for himself, he did not explicitly acknowledge his loss, but did say after two days of radio silence that he would abide by the constitution.
Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva is expected to take office on January 1 to succeed Bolsonaro.