BREAKING: Flávio Bolsonaro just pulled a trick straight out of Trump’s sleeve, refusing to concede after losing to Lula and demanding the election be annulled
Flávio Bolsonaro lost an election, and he reached for the oldest move in the Trump playbook.
Lula won a fourth term on Sunday. Bolsonaro, a Trump ally, said he would not concede and would seek to annul the runoff, according to Reuters. He said a ruling by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin extending voting by two hours was unacceptable.
If that sounds familiar, it should.
After losing in 2020, Donald Trump refused to concede and spent weeks insisting the election was stolen. It ended with the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Bolsonaro’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, ran a similar play after losing to Lula in 2022, and it led to the January 8, 2023, attacks on Brazil’s government buildings. He is now serving a prison sentence for trying to overturn that defeat, according to CNN.
Now the son is running the same script.
There’s a detail Bolsonaro left out. According to CNN, Zanin granted the extension after Lula’s campaign cited problems with buses that carry voters to polling places. But Bolsonaro’s own campaign had asked for an extension in some areas too, citing voters struggling to reach polling stations in heavy rain.
So his side asked for more voting time. Then he lost, and the same extension became grounds to throw out the result.
Meanwhile, global leaders have already congratulated Lula, Reuters reports. He became the first Brazilian president elected four times after trailing in the first round.
Trump said he was monitoring Brazil’s runoff and praised Flávio’s first-round performance.
When you lose, you say it was rigged. Brazil has now watched two Bolsonaros use it, and the whole world knows where they learned it.DTP