Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (Liberal Party), who lost the presidential runoff, announced on Sunday night (Oct. 25) that he would not recognize the election results, despite Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (Workers’ Party) margin of victory of more than 4.4 million votes.
His justification is the extension of voting hours ordered by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin, who granted a request submitted by both campaigns, including Flávio Bolsonaro’s.
“It is impossible to accept the election results given the circumstances under which these events unfolded. We will take legal action and seek to have the election annulled. We are not here to play games. I will not accept that this rule was changed mid-game – once again – by Lula’s friends on the Supreme Court,” Flávio Bolsonaro said in a press statement alongside his allies outside his campaign headquarters in Brasília.
In his view, the events of the second round were unacceptable.
“What happened today was not normal. It was, in fact, unacceptable. A Supreme Court justice – for the first time in history, a former lawyer for Lula – signed a decree at the request of a former business partner and changed the rules of the game midway through the game. At 5:01 p.m., Justice Zanin – who is not a member of the Superior Electoral Court – bypassed the specialized electoral court system and decided to extend voting hours by two hours. This had never happened in Brazil’s history. There was a complete breakdown of equality among Brazilians in different cities and states. I’ll never know how many votes I might have received in a state where polling stations weren’t reopened. It’s inexplicable that this actually happened,” the candidate stated.
Without mentioning the more than 59 million votes he received, Flávio Bolsonaro left without answering any questions.
Extension
Zanin decided on an emergency basis to extend voting hours until 7 p.m., deeming reports of difficulties transporting voters – particularly in cities in the state of Bahia and in São Paulo city – to be serious.
The ruling, announced at around 5 p.m. – the scheduled closing time for voting – initially extended voting hours at all polling places.
Following reports that several polling stations had already closed, the Superior Electoral Court clarified that the extension should apply only to polling stations that were still open.
The court’s president, Kassio Nunes Marques, instructed regional courts to keep those polling stations open until 7 p.m. Votes cast at polling stations that had already closed would be counted as usual.
Source: Agência Brasil