On Wednesday, the head of Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Alexandre de Moraes, rejected incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro’s decision to contest his electoral defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last month, reassuring that there is nothing to suggest that there is anything untoward with the country’s electronic voting system.
In Brazil’s closest presidential race in history, Lula and Bolsonaro headed to a second round of voting following a tight first round on 2 October, in which neither candidate secured the required 50% majority. In the second round on 30 October, Lula won 50.9% of the votes, while the right-wing Bolsonaro secured 49.1%.
The head of Brazil’s electoral authority on Wednesday rejected the request from President Jair Bolsonaro and his political party to annul ballots cast on most electronic voting machines, which would have overturned the Oct. 30 election. https://t.co/Ux1WsHuTvZ
— Bruno J. Navarro (@Bruno_J_Navarro) November 24, 2022
Arguing that Bolsonaro is only questioning the electronic voting system because he lost, de Moraes revealed that the president of Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party (PL) President Valdemar Costa, refused to include the results from the first round, which was won by Bolsonaro’s coalition.
“The complete bad faith of the plaintiff’s bizarre and illicit request... was proven, both by the refusal to add to the initial petition and the total absence of any evidence of irregularities and the existence of a totally fraudulent narrative of the facts,” de Moraes ruled on Wednesday, ordering the three-party coalition of the PL, the Progressive Party (PP), and the Republicans to pay 23 million reais ($4.3 million) for bad faith litigation.
On Tuesday, Costa filed a 33-page complaint to challenge the presidential election results, asserting that over 279,300 EVMs, which account for at least 60% of the machines, had “signs of serious failures that generate uncertainties and make it impossible to validate the results generated” and thus those votes should be nullified. Such a change would have resulted in a Bolsonaro victory, by leaving him with 51% of the votes. “There can’t be any doubts about the vote,” he asserted, adding, “If this is a stain on our democracy, we have to solve it now.”
In this regard, de Moraes noted, “The ballot boxes generate files that make it possible to identify precisely which equipment they were generated on. When one of these mechanisms stops working, others replace it, without affecting its traceability and the possibility of identifying ballot boxes.”
Though experts agreed that the software bug was real, they emphasised that it was too insignificant to impact the election results.
O presidente nacional do Partido Liberal, Valdemar Costa Neto, comunicou nesta terça-feira, 22, que o Partido entrou com uma representação no Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE) para anular votos de algumas urnas eletrônicas nas eleições do último dia 30 de outubro.
— Partido Liberal - PL 22 (@plnacional_) November 22, 2022
The TSE chief denounced Bolsonaro for his “reckless” attack on democracy, saying he was “encouraging criminal and anti-democratic movements.”
The president of Lula’s Workers Party, Gleisi Hoffmann, called the election complaint “chicanery,” stressing, “The election was decided in the vote and Brazil needs peace to build a better future.”
Similarly, the Brazilian Social Democracy party (PSDB) said that the complaint was “foolishness” and “will have the objection of our institutions, the international community and Brazilian society.”
“The same electronic voting machines, of all models in use, were used equally in the First Round and in the Second Round of the 2022 Elections, making it impossible to dissociate both periods from the same election”, said Alexandre de Moraes in the document.
— Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (@gchahal) November 24, 2022
Following his defeat, Bolsonaro did not explicitly concede but did ask his administration to begin the transition process. In fact, in his first public remarks since losing the election, he said has “always respected the framework of the constitution" and will “continue” to do so, in what was been interpreted as a concession of defeat. Likewise, his vice president, Hamilton Mourão, said in an interview: “There’s no point in crying any more, we lost the game.”
However, his supporters continued to hold protests outside military bases, blocking highways, and setting trucks ablaze in 20 cities across the country. Bolsonaro defended their actions, saying it was due to a sense of “indignation” and “a feeling of injustice.”
Some Bolsonaro supporters have admitted that Costa knew the complaint would ultimately be rejected but filed it anyway as an effort to sustain and rally the protests.
In Brazil, hundreds of truck drivers have come together to protest what they claim was a rigged presidential election in which their man, Jair Bolsonaro, lost. Take a look:pic.twitter.com/kkfHzb28fQ
— Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) November 20, 2022
In fact, after his loss last month, his son, congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, went to meet former United States (US) President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida in order to discuss the next steps. He was also advised by Trump strategist Stephen Bannon to challenge the election results in a bid to boost the demonstrations.
“What’s happening in Brazil is a world event. The people are saying they’ve been grossly disenfranchised. [The movement] has moved beyond the Bolsonaros in the way that in the US it has moved beyond Trump,” Bannon told The Washington Post.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly claimed that Brazil’s electronic voting system could be easily compromised and warned that he would not accept an outcome in which he loses. In July, the President alleged that the country’s electronic voting system is “completely vulnerable” and “cannot give 100% guarantee of security.”
Furthermore, he has accused Lula of not wanting a transparent electoral system and blamed Supreme Court judges and other officials for supporting the former president. In this respect, Bolsonaro has called on Brazilians to boycott the electronic voting system and called for bringing in paper ballots.
SCOOP: My first piece from Brazil! Shortly after his dad’s election loss, Eduardo Bolsonaro came to the US to meet w/Trumpworld.
— Elizabeth Dwoskin (@lizzadwoskin) November 23, 2022
With their leader ousted, Brazil’s right debates whether to contest the election or take on a global fight over free speech. https://t.co/l9EFlnmLHy
Bolsonaro’s repeated bids to cast doubt on the electoral system in the country served as a foreshadowing for his eventual refusal to concede defeat. In fact, he outlined three possibilities for himself in the run-up to the election: “being arrested, killed, or victory.” He even threatened to deploy the army if he lost and said after the Capitol insurrection in Washington D.C. last year that there could be similar scenes in Brazil because there is “a lot of fraud” in the country.
As things stand, former President Lula, who was disqualified from the 2018 election, will enter office on 1 January, 2023. The incoming leader was convicted in a mass corruption scandal in 2017 and spent almost 19 months in jail on corruption and money laundering charges. However, the Supreme Court acquitted him in 2019 and nullified all charges in 2021, allowing him to run in the recently-concluded election.
Bolsonaro, meanwhile, will leave office having been heavily criticised over his handling of the COVID-19 crisis, after he repeatedly questioned the efficacy of vaccines, downplayed the severity of the virus, fired multiple health ministers for disagreeing with him, and even held anti-lockdown demonstrations, which ultimately led to more than 689,000 deaths in the country.
He has also faced flak for his decision to remove a number of gun restrictions and give free rein to loggers, ranchers, miners, and land speculators. During his presidency, deforestation saw an unprecedented rise, reaching the highest level since 2005, with the government reducing environmental regulations to allow for more commercial mining and farming to grow the economy.