[News] Jair Bolsonaro challenges Brazil election results after losing to incoming president Lula

Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro (pictured top right) has challenged the election he lost in October to rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, arguing votes from some machines should be “invalidated” .

Bolsonaro’s coalition said its audit of the Oct. 30 second-round runoff between Bolsonaro and Lula had found “signs of irreparable … malfunction” in some electronic voting machines.

“There were signs of serious failures that generate uncertainties and make it impossible to validate the results generated” in older models of the voting machines, Bolsonaro allies said in their complaint. As a result, they urged that the votes from those models should be “invalidated.”

Bolsonaro’s claim seems unlikely to get far, as Lula’s victory has been ratified by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) and acknowledged by Brazil’s leading politicians and the international community.

 

Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice who currently leads the TSE, said in a ruling on Tuesday November 22,  that Bolsonaro’s right-wing electoral coalition, which filed the complaint, must present its full audit for both rounds of last month’s vote within 24 hours, or he would reject it.

Gleisi Hoffmann, the president of Lula’s Workers Party (PT), described Bolsonaro’s election complaint as “chicanery.”

“No more procrastination, irresponsibility, insults to institutions and democracy,” she wrote on Twitter.

 

“The election was decided in the vote and Brazil needs peace to build a better future.”

The Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), a PT rival, called Bolsonaro’s complaint “senseless,” tweeting that it would be resisted “by institutions, the international community and Brazilian society.”

Bolsonaro, has for years claimed that the country’s electronic voting system is liable to fraud, without providing substantiating evidence.

Bolsonaro remained publicly silent for nearly 48 hours after the election was called on Oct. 30 and has still not conceded defeat, although he authorized his government to begin preparing for a presidential transition.