Right-wing Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has followed his imprisoned father’s lead by refusing to concede defeat to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who won a historic fourth term in Sunday’s presidential election.
Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, called into question a decision by a Lula-appointed Supreme Court justice that extended voting by two hours over alleged public transport irregularities. The senator said he would ask for the result to be annulled.
“It is impossible to recognise the election results, given the circumstances under which things unfolded,” Bolsonaro told journalists.
While the candidate moved to contest the result, world leaders quickly rallied behind Lula’s victory, with congratulations pouring in from the EU, Mexico, France, Canada, India and Russia.
Recently elected right-wing presidents in Colombia, Peru and Chile joined the ranks of leaders recognising Sunday’s results, but Trump saying the poll was rigged.
Investors stunned by Lula’s comeback, which defied private polling, hammered Brazil’s stock market, exchange rate and public debt, as markets reassessed the country’s fiscal outlook under Lula.
The scale of Bolsonaro’s loss, with the senator trailing Lula by over four million votes, makes it unlikely his efforts to annul the vote will succeed, analysts said.
Less than 35,000 votes, or some 0.03 per cent of the total, were cast in the extra two hours of voting ordered by the Supreme Court, according to an analysis of electoral records by Insper professor Pedro Burgos.
Bolsonaro’s petition is also undermined by the fact that his campaign also sought a voting extension due to heavy rains in the conservative-leaning south. Still, the senator’s refusal to concede could spark protests in a country where faith in the electoral system, and judicial independence, has been strained in recent years, observers say.
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