Bolsonaro refuses to concede defeat in Brazil and calls for result to be annulled
The far-right candidate announces a legal battle against what he called an ‘outrage’ following a judge’s decision to extend voting by two hours
Just as in 2022, Bolsonarism does not accept defeat. Back then it was the father, Jair Bolsonaro, and now the son Flávio, both defeated at the polls by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The far-right candidate announced late Sunday night in Brasília that he does not recognize the result of the election and will fight to have it annulled. His argument rests on a Supreme Federal Court (STF) judge’s decision to extend polling hours by two hours after complaints about the lack of transportation for voters. The request had originally been made by the Workers’ Party (PT), but Bolsonaro’s own Liberal Party (PL) later joined it.
What will Flávio Bolsonaro do? Everyone was asking this question at the estate in Brasília, very close to an artificial lake, where the far-right leader had prepared everything for what he thought would be his first message as the country’s newly declared winner. An hour and a half after his defeat was made official, many of the leaders who had accompanied him started to leave with somber faces. One activist leaving the bolsonarista gathering put on an embarrassing show: he took off the Brazilian national soccer team’s verdeamarela shirt, made an obscene gesture at the cameras and shouted, “The Northeast is the cancer of Brazil!” alluding to the country’s poorest, most Lula-supporting region. The only official who stopped to speak with the press, Mato Grosso governor Mauro Mendes, said the candidate was “maintaining conversations.”
Finally Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son took the stage. Surrounded by leaders and supporters, most wearing that national team shirt they’ve appropriated as their own, he addressed the press briefly without taking questions, his expression looking half-hurt, half-angry. “What has happened is incredible, it’s not normal, nothing like this has ever happened in Brazil’s history before,” he said, referring to the two-hour extension of polling hours. Bolsonaro did not name the author of the decision, STF magistrate Cristiano Zanin, as such; instead he called him “Lula’s lawyer.” Zanin, in fact, years ago defended the PT leader in the case that led to his imprisonment.
The far-right candidate argued that the magistrate lacked the authority to order an extension of voting hours. But he omitted that his own party had also joined the PT’s request to allow voting for two additional hours. Those standing with him at the lectern did not drop their look of dismay until Bolsonaro declared: “This result cannot be accepted.” They broke into applause when he announced: “We are going to ask for the annulment of the elections. This has been an outrage!”
The candidate’s decision brings the judiciary back to the forefront of Brazilian politics, as has been the case for some time. In the STF, a target of far-right wrath, the camps supporting each of the opposing forces are easily distinguishable. The dispute will likely intensify with the battle now being announced.
It remains to be seen whether Flávio Bolsonaro will be satisfied with a legal fight or will take to the streets as in 2022 after his father’s defeat. Back then, thousands of far-right supporters camped for two months outside barracks nationwide, in a movement that ended with the assault on state institutions in Brasília on January 8, 2023. Meanwhile, Jair Bolsonaro plotted a coup that failed for lack of sufficient military backing and resulted in a 27-year prison sentence handed down by the STF.
Some of the most excitable bolsonaristas who had shown up at their leader’s headquarters in Brasília ready to celebrate were already anticipating the possible reaction if, as indeed happened, Lula won. Before counting had even begun, Pablo Marçal, a colorful coach-turned-politician and a Bolsonaro campaign collaborator, dismissed the PT’s complaints that right-wing administrations were cutting transportation services as a “narrative by those who have lost the elections.” Then came the king of the far-right networks, the young deputy Nikolas Ferreira, who hinted, invoking God, that if Bolsonaro did not win it would be because of the decision to extend voting hours.
At that lakeside estate, owned by a friend of the candidate, where the election night had been followed informally, the bolsonarista leadership was confident of victory. When the count reached 15% and their leader briefly took the lead, shouts of euphoria and sounds of percussion were heard. Someone hurriedly set off a firework. It was the first and the last. The next ones were heard an hour later, farther away, in different political territories.
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