Brazil’s electoral commission has rejected a complaint by outgoing president Jair Bolsonaro about the outcome of the presidential election. Bolsonaro’s party must also pay a fine of 23 million reals (more than 4 million euros) for undermining the electoral system.
Bolsonaro filed a complaint on Tuesday. He asks the commission to declare the votes of some electronic voting machines invalid. Malfunctions of nearly 300,000 old voting machines could have “tainted” the election.
Votes cast on these machines should be declared invalid, according to Bolsonaro. The election commission disagrees, according to a legal document released Wednesday.
The President of the Electoral Commission, Alexandre de Moraes, is also a judge of the Supreme Court of Brazil. As a result, Bolsonaro is unlikely to challenge the result in the country’s highest court.
Bolsonaro lost the presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the end of October. This happened by a small margin of less than two percentage points (50.9% against 49.1%). Lula will be sworn in as the new president on January 1. He previously held that position between 2003 and 2010.
The “Tropical Trump,” as Bolsonaro is often called, hinted during the campaign that he would not acknowledge the outcome if he lost. He acknowledged his defeat after a few days, but later contested the result.
