São Paulo: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has invited dozens of diplomats to the presidential palace to present claims regarding supposed vulnerabilities of the country’s electronic voting system, which electoral authorities have already debunked repeatedly.
Once again, the far-right leader didn’t present any evidence for his claims, which have drawn criticism from the members of the electoral authority and analysts who fear he is laying the groundwork to reject election results.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is running for a second term, make a heart hand gesture in Congress last week.Credit:AP
Bolsonaro faces an uphill battle to win a second term on October 2, with all polls showing him trailing well behind former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who governed Brazil between 2003-2010.
Bolsonaro’s address to diplomats was aired on the public television channel for almost an hour. During that time, he cited a Federal Police report on an alleged hacking into electronic voting machines. Brazil’s electoral authority said in August 2021 that investigators have never relayed to it any indication of fraud.
Brazilians have voted with an electronic system since 1996, and authorities have never found any evidence of widespread fraud. Bolsonaro has claimed he was denied outright victory in the first round of the 2018 presidential vote without need for a run-off and, at times, said he possessed proof – which he has never presented.
“An electronic system cannot give 100 per cent guarantee of security [for voters],” Bolsonaro said.
Former Brazilian president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva last week.Credit:Getty Images
He also argued the electoral authority should heed advice from the military on potential improvements for the voting system.
“The armed forces, whose commander-in-chief is me… no one wants more stability in our country than us,” he said.
Bolsonaro also reiterated critiques of Supreme Court justices, some of whom are also members of the nation’s electoral authority, suggesting they would favour Lula.
“People who owe favours to them [Lula and his Workers’ Party] do not want a transparent electoral system,” Bolsonaro told the assembled diplomats at the meeting in capital Brasilia. “They insist all the time that after the election results are announced your heads-of-state need to recognise them.”
The presidential palace didn’t provide information regarding how many diplomats attended the gathering. Brazilian media said about 70 diplomats, including dozens of ambassadors, attended.
Shortly after the encounter finished, the electoral authority issued a statement to once more debunk several falsehoods about the elections — including many that Bolsonaro mentions.
Rodrigo Pacheco, the president of Senate, said after Bolsonaro’s meeting that Congress, “whose members were elected with the current and modern electoral system, is obligated to tell the population that the electronic voting machines will give the nation a trustworthy result.”
“The safety of the electronic machines and the fairness of the electoral process can no longer be put in doubt. There is no just cause and no reason for that. That questioning is bad for Brazil in every respect,” Pacheco added.
Pacheco was elected for the job with Bolsonaro’s support, but last week met with Lula in Brasilia.
Non-profit Human Rights Watch said the meeting was yet more evidence that Bolsonaro “continues his dangerous disinformation campaign about the electoral system”.
“The international community should make it clear that any attempt to undermine the democratic system and the rule of law is unacceptable,” it said on Twitter.
In a separate event, the Supreme Court Justice Luiz Edson Fachin, who currently heads Brazil’s electoral authority, said at the local bar association of Parana state that “there is unacceptable electoral denialism by one public figure”.
Fachin added the person was making “very serious allegations of fraud without any evidence”.
AP
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