Bolsonaro says he will accept election results if they are ‘clean’

First modification: 08/23/2022 – 11:12Last modification: 08/23/2022 – 11:09

The far-right leader has questioned without evidence the reliability of electronic ballot boxes in Brazil, fueling fears that he may be unaware of an eventual defeat against the favorite in the polls, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Asked if he will respect the results whatever they may be, Bolsonaro replied: “The results of the polls will be respected as long as the elections are clean and transparent,” he said, repeating the same phrase several times at the presenter’s insistence.

Bolsonaro was interviewed in the Jornal Nacional of the Globo group, one of the most critical of his management and, in turn, the president’s target when he usually attacks journalism.

In his almost four years in office, Bolsonaro has prioritized related and small media outlets and, essentially, his social networks as a way of communicating with the population.

During the 40-minute interview, Bolsonaro defended his past attacks on the electoral system — he assures that there was fraud in the last elections of 2018 — stating that he was merely seeking “transparency.”

However, he adopted a more moderate tone when referring to justice and assured that the relationship with the president of the Superior Electoral Court and member of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Alexandre de Moraes, very tense until recently, is ” pacified.”

The far-right also denied having made mistakes during the management of the pandemic, which has left more than 680,00 dead in Brazil, despite having called the virus a “little flu” and disdained distancing measures and vaccination.

The president of Brazil showed that he had four words written on the palm of his left hand: “Nicaragua”, “Argentina”, “Colombia” and “Dario Messer”, a financier convicted in the Lava Jato anti-corruption operation. None of the topics were addressed.

In 2018, the then candidate had done the same and the image of his hand with the words “God”, “family” and “Brazil” went viral on social networks.

Lula, 76, leads the electoral race with 47% of the intention to vote against 32% for Bolsonaro, 67, according to a survey by the Datafolha Institute published last Thursday.

The AFP Fact-check team found that despite Bolsonaro saying that Brazil may be the “only country in the world with deflation”, at least eight other countries registered a drop in prices in July.

He also said he had never insulted the judges of the Federal Supreme Court, despite calling Moraes a “scoundrel” on September 7, 2021, the AFP team verified.