Trump calls Brazil vote 'rigged'; Flávio Bolsonaro told to surrender passports
The U.S. president offered no evidence. The defeated candidate says he has been barred from leaving the country and will now 'organise the opposition.'
Symbolic image · Photo: Annemariebr at English Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (cropped and resized)
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said Brazil's runoff, won by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, looked "rigged," without offering evidence. He called the vote "terrible" and "like another rigged election" and said: "Elections have to be indisputable, and it looked very bad to me." He also said he "didn't take sides."
Defeated candidate Flávio Bolsonaro initially refused to accept the result and called for the vote to be annulled. He criticised a two-hour voting extension ordered by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin, although Al Jazeera reported that both candidates had requested more time. In a video on Monday, Bolsonaro said he had been barred from leaving Brazil and served a notice to surrender his passports, adding that he would now "organise the opposition."
Congratulations to Lula came from Mexico, Canada, China, Russia and Chile, among others, and from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who said democracy and multilateralism "have won" in Brazil.