After defeat, Bolsonaro is silent, and Brazil braces for turmoil

For months, President Jair Bolsonaro claimed the only way he would lose Brazil’s presidential election was if it was rigged.
On Monday, a day after he lost, he declined to immediately concede to his left challenger, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leaving Latin America’s largest democracy on edge over whether there would be a peaceful transition of power.
Bolsonaro spent much of Monday holed up at the presidential offices, meeting with top advisers and Brazil’s miner of defense. At least some of the advisers urged the president to concede, but it was not clear if he had yet reached a decision on what to do, according to three government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private meetings.
Monday evening, nearly a full day after election officials had declared da Silva the new president-elect, Bolsonaro had yet to speak publicly. He was spending Monday evening working on a response at the presidential palace, with a plan to say something Tuesday, though what he would say was unclear, according to a senior adminration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Bolsonaro’s silence was unsettling for Brazil. He has consently claimed, without evidence, that the country’s electronic voting system is rife with fraud and that the left was planning to rig the vote. As a result, millions of his supporters have lost faith in the integrity of their nation’s elections, according to polls, and many have said publicly that they are prepared to take to the streets at his command.

On Monday, some were not waiting for any cues from Bolsonaro. Supporters, often led truckers, set up at least 236 road blockades across 20 states in Brazil, according to the federal highway police, snarling traffic on several important highways.
Still, the widespread demonstrations that many had feared could quickly follow the election results did not occur. Instead, in dozens of groups on the messaging app Telegram, many of Bolsonaro’s supporters appeared disjointed and in disagreement over how to respond to the president’s election loss, particularly without a response from the president himself. In the groups on Monday morning, people shared flyers for protests that ultimately did not happen Monday afternoon.
The response from Bolsonaro’s allies was clearer. Former and current government miners, right-wing lawmakers and prominent conservative pundits all accepted da Silva’s victory, albeit begrudgingly.
The most significant sign of Bolsonaro’s political isolation came just after election officials called the race. Brazil’s speaker of the House, Arthur Lira, a Bolsonaro ally and one of the country’s most powerful politicians, read a statement to television cameras that made clear he would not back any effort to hold on to power.

Brazil has ousted President Jair Bolsonaro, rebuking the far-right incumbent and delivering a stunning political revival for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the country’s left former leader. https://t.co/ce5TQiLPEK pic.twitter.com/BSBJDu5blz
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 31, 2022
“The will of the majority expressed at the polls should never be challenged,” he said, “and we will move forward in building a sovereign, just country with less inequality.”
The only member of Bolsonaro’s family to address the results Monday gave a less clear statement. The president’s son, Flavio Bolsonaro, a senator, posted a message on Twitter to his father’s supporters. “Let’s lift our heads and not give up on our Brazil!” he said. “God is in charge!”

Obrigado a cada um que nos ajudou a resgatar o patriotismo, que orou, rezou, foi para as ruas, deu seu suor pelo país que está dando certo e deu a Bolsonaro a maior votação de sua vida! Vamos erguer a cabeça e não vamos desir do nosso Brasil! Deus no comando!
— Flavio Bolsonaro #B22 (@FlavioBolsonaro) October 31, 2022
At the presidential offices Monday, a parade of top right-wing politicians made appearances, including several right-wing lawmakers, Bolsonaro’s running mate and his son.
On Monday afternoon, Bolsonaro also called the defense miner to the presidential offices, according to a military spokesperson. The defense miner had questioned the security of Brazil’s election system this year, but after election officials made changes to some tests of the voting machines, military leaders suggested that they were comfortable with the system’s security.
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, arrives at a voting site in the neighbourhood of Vila Militar in Rio de Janeiro on Oct. 30, 2022. (Maria Magdalena Arrellaga/The New York Times)
Some meetings Monday included Brazil’s foreign miner, economic miner, communications miner and the president’s chief of staff, according to one of the government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity; all of them are seen as some of the more moderate voices atop the government.
In those meetings, the miners proposed a statement on the election results with the president, this official said. After six hours at the offices, Bolsonaro returned to the presidential palace. There, he planned to finish drafting a response, according to the senior adminration official. The president seemed calm, the person said.
Da Silva spent Monday talking to other world leaders. He greeted President Alberto Fernández of Argentina with a hug in São Paulo, and he spoke to President Joe Biden on the phone. The White House said in a statement that Biden “commended the strength of Brazilian democratic institutions following free, fair and credible elections.”
Yet claims of fraud were still bubbling up — including from right-wing voices in the United States.
Supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro react as they watch his defeat to former President Lula da Silva during Brazil’s presidential runoff in Brasilia on Oct. 30, 2022. (Dado Galdieri/The New York Times)
Rodrigo Constantino, an influential Brazilian pundit who lives in Florida, posted to his 1.4 million followers on Twitter on Monday morning that the pattern in the vote returns seemed too consent to be natural. “It even looks like an algorithmic thing!” he said.
In an interview, Constantino said he was going off his gut. “Nobody can prove it,” he admitted. But regardless of whether there was voter fraud, he said, the election was stolen because of unfair refereeing election officials.
“I don’t want to set things on fire,” he said. “I don’t want to be a flame. But we all know, in the best of options, it was a rigged election.”
Elsewhere in the United States, Steve Bannon, a podcast host and former adviser to Donald Trump, claimed in a video late Sunday that the vote had been rigged and that Bolsonaro “cannot concede.”

Of course Steve Bannon is already trying to protect Bolsonaro, and it’s crying “election fraud” in Brazil too: pic.twitter.com/L2z4O8wCrD
— Nathália Urban (@UrbanNathalia) October 31, 2022
Misinformation about potential voter fraud also spread rapidly in conservative corners of the Brazilian internet, including unattributed videos that purported to show voting machines malfunctioning and out-of-the-blue claims that election officials had rigged the vote.
Brazil’s election officials said there was no evidence of fraud Sunday. An audit of 601 polling stations found that their vote counts were accurately reflected in the national tally.
Brazil is the only country to use a fully digital voting system without paper backups. Bolsonaro has seized on that as a crucial flaw that leaves the system open to fraud because it prevents officials from ensuring that each vote was recorded correctly. Yet, independent computer-security experts who have studied the system say that layers of security prevent fraud and errors. And there is no evidence of credible fraud in the voting machines since Brazil began using them in 1996.
At the blockades, however, protesters made clear that they believed the election had been stolen.
Supporters of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro block highway BR-251 during a protest against President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who won a third term following the presidential election run-off, in Planaltina, Brazil, Oct. 31, 2022. (Reuters)
In Barra Mansa, two hours north of Rio de Janeiro, about 30 unarmed men blocked the main highway connecting São Paulo and Rio, Brazil’s two largest cities, causing a roughly 5-mile backup in traffic Monday. The men used a large tire and their bodies to block the road, though they allowed buses and vehicles with children or older people pass.
“We will stay here until there is a military intervention or the electoral court changes what is happening,” said Antoniel Almeida, 45, the owner of a party-supply store who was helping run the blockade. Almeida believed the election was rigged. “We need an investigation,” he said.
Monday afternoon, the men had set up a tent and were accepting food and water donations, saying they planned to stay until the results were overturned. Police officers watched but did not intervene.
In Rio de Janeiro, about 20 protesters parked their cars and motorcycles at the entrance to a key bridge linking the city to a neighbouring area across a bay. Waving large Brazilian flags, they shouted for an investigation into the results and stopped traffic for more than an hour before moving on.

Truck drivers and supporters of Brazilian President #JairBolsonaro blocked roads around the country to protest the results of the runoff election. Bolsonaro has not yet conceded to #LuizInácioLulaDaSilva.📸: Wagner Meier, @heulerandrey, @anderson_coelho #Brazil #Brazilelections pic.twitter.com/XIh1Mf4U0U
— Getty Images News (@GettyImagesNews) October 31, 2022
Overall, the protests were largely nonviolent — and far smaller than many authorities had feared.
On the streets of some of Brazil’s biggest cities Sunday night, many of Bolsonaro’s supporters responded to the results with claims of fraud — and then a swift exit.
“I don’t know if my vote was counted nor the votes of the people here,” said Marcelo Costa Andrade, 45, a government worker scrolling through his phone at what he hoped would be a victory party in Bolsonaro’s wealthy beachside neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. “I feel robbed.”
But despite his suspicion that the election might have been stolen, he was preparing to leave. “Now I’ll go home, talk to my family, lean on God and wait for Bolsonaro to say something,” he said.
Adding to some people’s doubts was the fact that Bolsonaro lost in the narrowest presidential election in the 34 years of Brazil’s modern democracy. Da Silva won 2.1 million votes, or 1.8 percentage points, in an election where more than 118 million Brazilians voted.
In his acceptance speech Sunday night, da Silva recognised the country’s deep division and said he would seek to unite the nation.
“I will govern for 215 million Brazilians and not just for those who voted for me,” he said. “There are not two Brazils. We are one country, one people, one great nation.”
Da Silva is set to take office on Jan. 1.