Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, a former left-wing Brazilian president who is challenging far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential election, stated on Friday that he feared Bolsonaro would incite “unrest” if he lost the first round of voting on Sunday.
Bolsonaro has signalled that he won’t accept defeat in the presidential race while questioning Brazil’s electronic voting system frequently late in the votes.
When he initially won the president in 2002, Lula told reporters in Rio de Janeiro, his defeated opponents often admitted defeat.
Lula, who ruled for two terms in a row from 2003 to 2010, said, “This is not Bolsonaro’s behaviour, he can try to generate some kind of trouble.”
A contender must earn more than 50% of the votes cast in order to win the first round.
According to a recent Datafolha Institute study, 50% of respondents are openly in favour of Lula.
They said that they wanted to use legal ballots, not ones that were empty or invalid.
Bolsonaro has frequently asserted—without providing any supporting evidence—that Brazil’s electronic voting machines are susceptible to fraud. Many believe this to be a preemptive move to contest the election’s outcome.
If Lula prevails in the first round, political expert Guillerme Casaros of So Paulo Business School said, “I have a hunch Bolsonaro will not recognise the result.”
He continued by saying that one scenario is that he “calls his supporters to take to the streets to protest the election results, and this may lead us to a scenario similar to what we saw in the United States in 2021,” alluding to the supporters of former President Donald Trump storming the US Congress building in Washington to protest his electoral defeat.
Bolsonaro has previously claimed that “only God” is capable of removing him from power and that his bid for a second term can only lead to “jail, death, or victory.”
If Bolsonaro loses the presidential election, Lula da Silva voices concerns about instability.
About Author
