Jair Bolsonaro Won’t Accept Lula’s Victory
Last week, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro filed a complaint with Brazil’s highest court on election law, claiming buggy voting machines denied him victory in October’s election. The court ruled against him — but like Trump, Bolsonaro won't admit defeat anytime soon.
Supporters of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro take part in a demonstration against the election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in front of the National Congress in Brasilia, on November 30, 2022. (Mateus Bonomi / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Former US president Donald Trump and sitting Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro have a lot in common: they’re both right-wing provocateurs with a penchant for stoking hatred and enacting cruel policies.
They also both happen to be sore losers who can’t admit when they’ve lost an election.
Last week, Jair Bolsonaro broke his long silence following his loss to Lula da Silva with an official complaint to the Brazilian Superior Electoral Tribunal, the country’s highest court on electoral law. The lame-duck president informed the court that a company he’d contracted to investigate the country’s election machines found a bug in the machines that rendered the election invalid, claiming the machines incorrectly attributed millions of votes in his favor to Lula, and that therefore he actually won the October 30 runoff.
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