Court rejects challenge to Bolsonaro’s defeat

The judges ruled that the President-elect’s Liberal Party had not presented any evidence of alleged fraud, and he fined the applicants.

Does not want to come to terms with his election defeat: Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro.

Adriano Machado / Reuters

(dpa)

The Supreme Electoral Court in Brazil has rejected the request of the party of President Jair Bolsonaro to review the results of the election. The Liberal Party (PL) has not provided any evidence of alleged fraud, Court President Alexandre de Moraes said on Wednesday. He also imposed a fine of 23 million reais (about 4 million Swiss francs) on the applicants. They would have maliciously and irresponsibly started a lawsuit and brought it to justice.

Bolsonaro lost the runoff election on October 30 to leftist ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The right-wing head of state did not explicitly acknowledge his defeat.

On Tuesday, the PL applied to the Supreme Electoral Court to have part of the votes declared invalid. According to this, electronic ballot boxes manufactured after 2020 should not have any serial numbers and therefore cannot be clearly assigned. Court President Moraes rejected this. The request is ridiculous and illegal. Even before the vote, Bolsonaro had repeatedly expressed doubts about the electoral system and indicated that he might not recognize the result.

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