U.S. President Donald Trump said Brazil’s presidential runoff Oct. 25 that resulted in the reelection of the country’s progressive incumbent looked “rigged.”
“It looked terrible to me,” Trump told reporters Monday. “I thought it was terrible. I didn’t take sides but it looked like another rigged election, frankly. It was a terrible look for the world.”
Trump said he didn’t endorse Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or his opponent, conservative Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro.
Lula, 80, won a fourth term with 51.8 percent of the total vote—a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes.
Bolsonaro, 45, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, refused to concede defeat Monday. He announced Sunday night that he would seek to annul the results of the election, criticizing the actions of a Supreme Court justice appointed by Lula who ordered a two-hour extension of voting.
The conservative candidate was ahead by more than 2.2 million votes in the first round of voting earlier this month, but he secured only 47 percent of the vote, just shy of the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff. More than 33 million of the country’s 160 million registered voters didn’t turn out to vote in the initial round.
Both candidates asked for additional voting time. Bolsonaro asked for extra poll time in the conservative-leaning southern region, citing heavy rain.
Lula asked the supreme court to extend poll time after reports of transportation issues in two cities that favored the incumbent.
Bolsonaro said the decision by Lula’s former lawyer, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin, to extend voting by two hours nationwide just three minutes before voting was scheduled to end was unacceptable and that the rules had been changed late in the election process.
“It is impossible—it is IMPOSSIBLE—to recognize the election results in the context of how these things happened,” Bolsonaro told supporters.
The late decision sparked widespread confusion after many polling stations started shutting down. Bolsonaro also alleged his poll watchers were removed from secure ballot counting rooms when the decision was made.
Trump said the election process and resulting public outrage didn’t reflect well on the country’s image.
“Elections have to be indisputable,” Trump said. “And it looked very bad to me. I didn’t take sides, I didn’t endorse anybody. I watched the election and it looked so corrupt, so terrible.”
Trillionaire X owner Elon Musk questioned the final result numbers in an X post on Monday.
“Math doesn’t add up,” Musk posted.
Results showed Lula earned nearly 64.3 million (64,256,232) votes, while Bolsonaro garnered 59.8 million (59,826,041). Nearly 4.2 million votes were declared invalid, according to Reuters.
In the first round on Oct. 4, Bolsonaro obtained 56.1 million votes, and Lula received 53.8 million.
Lula expressed gratitude to the Brazilian people following his election Sunday and criticized Bolsonaro for disputing the results of the election.
“No one is required to like the president-elect, but he must govern for everyone,” Lula said as he addressed supporters. “This was a defeat for denialism and lies.”
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