[Source: Reuters]
US President Donald Trump said that Brazil’s presidential vote, won by leftist incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, “looked like another rigged election,” in comments supportive of claims by defeated right-winger Flavio Bolsonaro.
The son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, Flavio Bolsonaro refused to concede defeat in Sunday’s presidential election, saying he would seek the annulment of Lula’s victory after the Supreme Court extended voting by two hours.
Trump did not endorse Bolsonaro ahead of the vote, although Reuters has reported that officials from his State Department led a campaign to return the Bolsonaros to power.
“I didn’t take sides, but it looked like another rigged election,” Trump told reporters, without providing any evidence. “It looked very bad to me.”
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Bolsonaro lost to Lula by over four million votes, a clear result that it will be challenging for him to overturn. Fewer than 35,000 votes, or some 0.03% 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.
“I just think it had a very bad look, the election, the way it was tabulated,” Trump said. “The extension given was very strange.”
Vice President Geraldo Alckmin later defended Brazil’s electoral system, saying in a TV interview with Rede Vanguarda that Trump’s remarks were “totally wrong” and “unfounded.”
Neither Trump nor Jair Bolsonaro accepted their election losses in 2020 and 2022, respectively. Brazil’s former president was handed a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup after losing to Lula.
Analysts do not expect Flavio Bolsonaro to be able to build the same anti-democratic movement as his father in 2022.
He said on Monday he would comply with a federal police order to hand over his passports following a visit to his father, who is under house arrest. He denied he was planning to flee Brazil.