Latest / Best of: Features / Lula mobilized millions to win Brazil's election, while Bolsonaro contests loss and Trump cries foul

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Lula mobilized millions to win Brazil's election, while Bolsonaro contests loss and Trump cries foul · Best of: Features

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  Lula mobilized millions to win Brazil’s election, while Bolsonaro contests loss and
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  Trump cries foul. Written by Anna Catherine Brigada and Mauricio Savaris.
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  This article is being read by an automated voice generated by Everlet.
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  Brasilia Brazil, the AP President Luis Inacholula da Silva's comeback to win
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  Brazil's presidential runoff Sunday is facing its first hurdle as his competitor,
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  Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, attempts to mount an organized opposition to the results.
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  Lula, who convinced an extra ten point four million voters to support
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  him in the runoff, is expected to take office on January fifth,
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  twenty twenty seven, for his fourth nonconsecutive term. He will serve as
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  a counterweight in a region where leaders are shifting to the right
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  and aligning with U.S. President Donald Trump. Bolsonaro, son of former President
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  J.R. Bolsonaro, promised to cozy up to the Trump administration. President Donald
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  Trump suggested on Monday, without providing evidence, that Lula's reelection was rigged.
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  Elections have to be indisputable and it looked very bad to me,
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  Trump told reporters before flying to Mississippi for a rally. He added,
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  I thought it had a very bad look, the way it was
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  tabulated. Trump also said, It looked like another rigged election, frankly. At
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  a news conference Sunday, Bolsonaro said he planned to request an annulment
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  of the election following a chaotic extension of voting at the request
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  of both candidates, but in a video on his social media channels
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  on Monday, he did not repeat that message and promised to organize
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  opposition to Lula. Bolsonaro said He will press the electoral court to
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  nullify the election results, which it has never done before. That would
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  be a high hurdle. Bolsonaro would have to present evidence that the
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  four point our million votes by which Lula won the election were
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  fraudulent, and convince the full eight member electoral court of that. He
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  would need to do that before the election results are certified on
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  december eighteenth. I am going to gather elected lawmakers and senators to
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  organize four strategy and make the lower house and the Senate our
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  fortress against barbaric acts that are set to happen in another four
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  years of Lula, Bolsonaro said. Bolsonaro also said he visited his father
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  in house arrest on Monday. Jair Bolsonaro, who is now serving a
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  twenty seven year sentence for a coup attempt, unsuccessfully contested his loss
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  to Lula four years ago. Early signs from Brazil's institutions and from
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  leaders across the region, including conservative presidents who oppose Lula’s suggest the
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  results will be respected nationally and internationally. Even with the vote extension,
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  Lula's win was decisive. The soon to be eighty one year old
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  incumbent won more than sixty four million votes compared to just under
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  sixty million for Bolsonaro, a margin of nearly four percent. President of
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  Brazil's electoral authority, Cassio Nunes, who was appointed to The
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  Supreme Court by ex President Jair Bolsonaro, was among those who recognized
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  Lula's victory Sunday. This is a really uphill battle for Flavio Bolsonaro.
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  Important Brazilian power brokers are closing ranks behind Lula, sometimes begrudgingly, said
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  Brian Winter, Brazil analyst and editor in chief of America's Quarterly. I
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  sense that Brazilian power brokers that matter don't really want to go
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  down the path of a truly contested election, he said. The numbers
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  behind Lula's victory. The key to Lula's win was the additional fourteen
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  point one million voters who showed up for the second round election,
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  including those who voted for other candidates in the first round. Analysts
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  say three quarters of those votes went to Lula, handing him the
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  victory, and notably the first round set a record for the number
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  of Brazilians who decided not to vote, while The
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  second round had the least number of abstentions ever. Lula gave his
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  digital campaign to lawmaker Andre Janones, who mounted a fierce and persistent
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  social media operation that mobilized many of those previously uncommitted voters. Janone's
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  key tool was a channel on messaging app WhatsApp called Lula's Army,
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  which gathered almost eleven million people and mobilized them to campaign via
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  social media for the incumbent. Chenones basically embraced the right style of
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  aggressive politics, very intense, constant messaging, said Oliver Stwinkle, a professor of
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  international relations at Fundasaun, Getulio Vargas in Sao Paulo. The defeat in
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  the first round jolted the Lula campaign into action. The strategy during
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  the first round was lackluster, and saw a lot of infighting, Stuenkel
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  said. Giuliano Cortinhas, international relations professor at they University of Brasilia, said
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  Lula's social media initiative in the runoff was also key to pressuring
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  Meta, the owner of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook, to end what the
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  president's campaign denounced as bias helping Bolsonaro. Brazil's top electoral court ruled
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  on october fifteenth that Meta must adopt measures that assure equal treatment
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  of the two presidential candidates, which the company later said it addressed.
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  There was external interference we were suffering by major platforms, Curtina said.
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  It wasn't only Meta, many others were using their algorithms to repost
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  many images and many messages of the far right, and they did
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  not do the same to the left. It was the first time
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  since nineteen eighty nine that a candidate came from behind in the
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  first round to win in the second. Results show voter turnout surged
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  overall, particularly in wealthier metropolitan centers, but Lula achieved his highest gains
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  in lower income municipalities where his base was already established. He mobilized
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  former non voters, those who voted blank In
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  the first round and supporters of third party candidates. Jorge Henrique Oliveira
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  Cinna, a twenty six year old maintenance worker in Brasilia, was one
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  of those who didn't vote in the first round. Neither candidate excited
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  him much, but he cast his vote for Lula. It's not a
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  question of supporting, but between the two, ooh, I had more of
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  a connection with him, he said. Brazil's voting system and Sunday's disruptions
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  Brazil holds general elections every four years, and its electronic voting machines
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  have made the tallying process quick and secure. Brazilian authorities adopted electronic
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  voting machines in the nineteen nineties to combat fraud, and the system
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  has been largely reliable since then. Results are usually reported mere hours
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  after polls close. In the lead up to the twenty twenty two
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  vote, Jair Bolsonaro repeatedly cast unfounded doubts on Brazil's electronic voting system.
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  No significant fraud has ever been detected. But the usually swift voting
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  process was thrown into disarray Sunday, after a last minute decision to
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  extend voting nationwide at both candidates requests. Lula make them request because
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  of issues with public transportation in Metropolis, Sao Paulo, and the northeastern
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  city of Salvador, two of his strongholds. Bolsonaro requested it after heavy
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  rains in the south, which he won by a strong margin in
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  the first round. The decision was made by a Supreme Court justice
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  mere minutes, before polls were set to close at five PM, and
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  the speed of Brazil's counting con process meant many polling stations didn't
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  receive the news until they were already wrapping up. Yet, given the
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  reliability of Brazil's voting system and Lula's win by a significant margin,
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  a path to annul the results could be difficult for Bolsonaro. Benjamin
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  Giddon, Senior Fellow and Director of the Stimson Center, Latin America program,
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  said Bolsonaro's rejection of his loss was not surprising. False claims of
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  fraud are becoming commonplace, though that does not make them any less
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  dangerous, he said. He noted Lula's margin of victory and the quick
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  recognition of the result by Conservative leaders in the region. Nevertheless, Lula
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  still faces challenges moving forward, including political polarization in the country, a
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  possible fiscal crisis, and a right wing Congress in which Bolsonaro's party
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  will have more seats than any other. Bolsonaro himself remains a senator,
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  though his term ends in January. We shouldn't underestimate the power of
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  the Bolsonaro family, said Winter, the Brazil analyst. They can make life
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  difficult for Lula for weeks and months to come. Savarese reported from
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  Sao Paulo, the AP writer Will Visert in Washington contributed.