Brazil’s Bolsonaro challenges election loss, files petition demanding votes be annulled
FILE PHOTO: Supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro protest outside the Brazilian Congress AP Photo/Eraldo Peres
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Wednesday he was filing a formal request with the country’s electoral court to overturn last month’s election that saw him lose to far-right outsidercandidate Fernando Haddad, the country’s most prominent political outsider in decades at the same time as a far-right challenge to Brazil’s constitution.
The Supreme Electoral Court on Wednesday rejected his initial complaint and urged the electoral tribunal to review the case.
Bolsonaro had demanded last month that Haddad be disqualified from the vote, something he said was due to irregularities in the run-up to the vote and the high rate of fraud.
“The electoral court will determine the final result,” Bolsonaro wrote on Twitter, without giving a reason.
Haddad won an election on Oct. 28 with 48.6 percent of the vote to Bolsonaro’s 36.3 percent. The victory followed months of intense campaigning and a campaign that was seen in the country as a referendum on Bolsonaro, who took over as president in January from President Michel Temer.
The Supreme Electoral Tribunal was set to announce the vote results in mid-November. But the government asked for a delay, citing logistical problems and threats of rain at a site that was used in 2010 for the first time, due to unusually high levels of humidity during the election.
Haddad said in a video posted on Twitter that he intended to file a second complaint with the electoral court to request a recount.
But the court said it would only consider Bolsonaro’s complaint, rejecting his request for a recount. It said the request was an attempt to influence the outcome of the vote and the results should be the final ones.
“By filing this petition, the president is trying to influence the