Lula is Elected President of Brazil. Bolsonaro Must Support the Transition

WBO press release November 1st 2022

• Workers’ Party (PT) candidate received more than 2 million votes more than his rival and is expected to take office on January 1, 2023

• Current president must recognize the result and refrain from inciting violence and unfounded questioning

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected president of Brazil on Sunday, October 30 after defeating the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, in the second round. The PT candidate will take office on January 1, 2023. This will be the third time that Lula governs Brazil. Earlier, he was elected president in 2002 and re-elected in 2006.

The PT candidate received more than 60.3 million votes (50.9 percent of the total). Bolsonaro had just over 58.2 million (49.1 percent). The difference between them was approximately 2.1 million votes (1.8 percent), according to official data from the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).

Despite the Electoral Justice having attested to the results of the polls and no international observer mission having made any negative comments about the process, President Bolsonaro maintained the tactic of undermining democracy until the end. It took him 45 hours to comment on the result.

When he finally spoke, on Tuesday, November 1 in the afternoon, the Brazilian president spoke for just two minutes without uttering a clear sentence acknowledging the result and congratulating his opponent, who emerged victorious. Bolsonaro referred to the movement of his supporters, who since the day after the election, have blocked highways in Brazil asking for a coup d'état. For him, “the current popular movements are the result of indignation and a feeling of injustice at the way in which the electoral process took place.” The president did not explain what “injustice” this would be.

Road Blocks

The vote was marked, on Sunday, October 30, by a series of operations carried out by the Federal Highway Police on roads in various parts of the country, which made it difficult for voters to reach the polls. The newspaper Folha de São Paulo reported that 514 such operations took place, an increase of 70 percent in relation to similar operations carried out in the first round, on October 2. Most of the incidents took in states in the northeast region of Brazil, Lula's biggest electoral stronghold.

Alexandre de Moraes, the president of the Superior Electoral Court, said in an official statement followed by a press conference that the Federal Highway Police’s operations may have delayed the arrival of some voters to the polling places, but did not stop anyone from voting.

Episodes of Violence

In the days leading up to the second round, two important violence incidents involving Bolsonaro’s allies were recorded. On October 24, the Sunday before the second round, former federal congressional representative Roberto Jefferson threw stun grenades and fired shots at a group of federal police officers who went to his house, in the city of Comendador Levy Gasparian, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, to serve an arrest warrant for having violated the rules of his house arrest. Jefferson had his preventive detention decreed by the Justice on Thursday, October 27.

In another episode, the congressional representative Carla Zambelli, a close ally of Bolonaro, ran after a Lula voter through the streets of an upscale neighborhood in São Paulo with a firearm in her hand. The incident took place on October 29, the eve of the second round. One of the congresswoman’s security guards even fired his own firearm at the ground, while also threatening the PT voter, a black man who had insulted Zambelli's group in front of a restaurant. The congressional representative's security guard was arrested and released on bail. The congressional representative will have her case analyzed by the Federal Supreme Court, according to the Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

After Lula's victory, radical supporters of Bolsonaro blocked roads in more than 200 places in 18 Brazilian states, calling for a coup d'état. The Federal Highway Police – whose commander, Silvinei Vasques, has openly declared his support for Bolsonaro – took a long time to unblock the roads, which only started to flow again on Tuesday, November 1st, after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes stipulated payment of a fine for failing to comply with the order and threatened to arrest him.

The Washington Brazil Office’s Position

“Bolsonaro's attitude of not recognizing his own defeat in the first 45 hours and of presenting ambiguous and unfounded suspicions about the polls and the electoral system represents a serious attack on democracy. There is nothing, no reliable information, to corroborate what the Brazilian president is saying about an alleged ‘injustice’ in the process. His arguments are just an illegitimate way of denying his own defeat, and must be rejected as such”, said Paulo Abrão, executive director of the Washington Brazil Office (WBO).

“The moment immediately after the release of the results of the polls is complicated because with his silence President Bolsonaro insisted on encouraging a radicalized and violent political base. The consequences of this irresponsible attitude can be serious. However, we are pleased to note that several democratic leaders around the world, including the presidents of France and the United States, for example, have sent a unified and unequivocal signal in defense of the outcome of this election, Lula's victory, and the reliability of the system. Brazilian electoral campaign,” said James N. Green, professor of Brazilian history and culture at Brown University and chairman of the WBO Board of Directors.

Worries Ahead

“The two months separating the election from the inauguration will be especially delicate,” added Abrão. “Bolsonaro must refrain from inciting any acts of violence and, more than that, he must make clear and unambiguous public statements discouraging any attitude that seeks to contest the election results and the inauguration of Lula on the part of his allies and supporters”.

The WBO considers that Lula's victory represents a valuable opportunity to rebuild democracy in Brazil after four years of rule by an extreme right-wing government that attacked the institutional pillars and checks and balances of the Brazilian republic. A new Lula term – backed by a wide range of democratic forces of different ideological hues – gives Brazil a chance to once again face seriously problems, such as inequality, environmental devastation and racism, in addition to promoting measures in favor of the poorest, women, indigenous peoples, and democracy and human rights more broadly.  

The threat that Bolsonaro represents is not extinguished with the results of this election. “Permanent vigilance is needed not only in the period before Lula’s inauguration, but also throughout the term of office of the new president, as Bolsonarism is still alive and its violent ideas of contesting democracy still echo in a good part of Brazilian society, which allowed has been radicalized. We will be on alert over the next four years and will engage in effective actions to protect individual freedoms and the democratic system, both on the streets and in a Congress, which will be under pressure from a newly elected congressional representatives linked to the Brazilian extreme right”, concludes Green.