The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, made it clear on Tuesday that he is reluctant to accept the victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, through a lawsuit in which his party asks to partially “invalidate” the result of the elections.
Source: EFE
The lawsuit was filed by the Liberal Party (PL), which supported the candidacy of the far-right leader for re-election, and questions the 61% of the electronic ballot boxes used in the second round of the elections, held on 30 September. october.
According to the official result, Lula prevailed in that second round with 50.9%, compared to 49.1% obtained by Bolsonaro, in a process endorsed and recognized as transparent by all the national and international observer missions that participated.
The president of the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Alexandre de Moraes, immediately responded to the PL’s demand and said that it can only be analyzed if there are also doubts about the first round, held four weeks earlier.
In that first round, the legislative elections were also held, in which the PL obtained 99 deputies, which will give it the first minority in the lower house starting next year.
The president of the PL, Valdemar Costa Neto, in an ambiguous statement, clarified that the report on which the demand is based “does not represent the opinion of the party,” but considered that “it must be analyzed” in order to “strengthen democracy.”
However, De Moraes clarified that the ballot boxes placed under suspicion were used in both rounds, for which he urged the PL to “also question the result of the first round within 24 hours.”
ANOTHER CHARGE AGAINST THE BALLOTS IN THE MIDDLE OF BOLSONARO’S SILENCE
In the last twenty days, Bolsonaro has not been seen in public and has disappeared from his social networks, in which he was feverishly active, but although he has not publicly accepted his defeat, he has begun the transition process with the team designated by Lula. for that end.
However, the PL’s demand was interpreted as a new onslaught against electronic ballot boxes, about which the far-right leader has sown suspicion since Lula began to stand out in the polls more than a year ago.
The PL said it had commissioned an audit from a private company, which concluded that 61% of the 577,125 ballot boxes used in the second round of the elections, manufactured between 2009 and 2015, “cannot be audited”, unlike others, 2020 model.
It also ensures that, if only these more modern ballot boxes are taken into account, Bolsonaro won the elections with 51.05% of the votes.
The engineer Carlos Rocha, responsible for the report, explained that there are “very strong indications of malfunction” in the old ballot boxes and that “a possible inspection, an extraordinary verification, in the face of an extraordinary event” should be carried out.
The lawyer Marcelo Bessa, who represents the PL, added that “because of this technical report, the inconsistencies and the relevant data” that it presents, that formation asked the electoral authorities to “verify this possible malfunction.”
The PL’s demand generated uproar in the camps that thousands of far-right activists have maintained for three weeks at the gates of dozens of barracks, demanding a coup that prevents Lula’s inauguration on January 1.
LULA’S PARTY ASKS TO END THE “MALICIA”
The Workers’ Party (PT), which led the electoral coalition led by Lula, rejected the action attempted by the PL and considered it a “trick” that cannot prosper in the courts.
“Bolsonaro’s appeal before the TSE is a ruse that must be sanctioned as a lawsuit in bad faith. Enough of malice, irresponsibility and insults to the institutions and to democracy”, affirmed the president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, in a message posted on Twitter.
“The election was decided with the vote and Brazil needs peace to build a better future,” added Hoffmann, one of the heads of the transition team appointed by Lula, who is recovering from minor throat surgery.
