Bolsonaro questions the result: “It is impossible to recognize these elections, we are going to request their annulment”
The senator blames Judge Zanin, Lula's former lawyer, for changing the rules by extending the voting period
Senator Flávio Bolsonaro , candidate of the Liberal Party (PL) , announced this Sunday that he will not recognize his defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the second round of the Brazilian presidential elections and that he will request the annulment of the vote. “It is impossible to recognize the elections under these conditions,” he stated in a brief press appearance in Brasília.
The eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro , who had been the most voted for in the first round , lost the runoff with 48.21% of the vote against the incumbent's 51.79%, and urged his supporters not to give up.
The accusations against Zanin
The senator's central argument is the decision by the justice of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Cristiano Zanin to extend voting by two hours , until 7:00 p.m., in all polling stations across the country, due to problems with public transportation . Bolsonaro described the measure as unacceptable and illegal, recalled that Zanin was Lula's personal lawyer for years, and accused him of changing the rules of the game in the middle of the match at the request of a former associate.
Moreover, he maintained that the judge overrode the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) , which has jurisdiction to rule on the request from the ruling party’s campaign, and that his party’s monitors were removed from the data processing center after the decision, adopted at 5:01 p.m., just when the polling stations were supposed to close.
An unprecedented extension
Zanin justified the measure because of its evident urgency and instructed the TSE to implement it, which forced the suspension of the dissemination of the count. The president of the electoral court, Kassio Nunes Marques, acknowledged that the injunction issued after the official closing created difficulties , although he assured that the technical problems were resolved and that the flow of data was safely released from 7:00 p.m. onward.
Bolsonaro's own campaign had asked to extend the voting , although only in certain municipalities in the south and southeast. For now, there is no indication that the challenge has been formally filed.
