It took outgoing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro more than 44 hours after the official announcement of the presidential election results to finally decide to not contest those results. In his sullen two-minute statement to the press late afternoon today, Bolsonaro did not mention the name of “Lula da Silva,” who had defeated him, or concede that he had lost, but immediately after he had spoken and left the room (taking no questions), Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, Ciro Nogueira, announced that he had been authorized by the President to begin the process of transition, in compliance with Brazilian law. Whereupon Nogueira, too, turned and left, without answering questions.
Bolsonaro thanked the 58 million people who voted for him, but limited himself to cautioning his more radical supporters who were blocking highways and roads across the country, that “peaceful demonstrations are always welcome, but our methods cannot be those of the left, that always harmed the population.” He otherwise justified those protests — which had led to shortages of food in supermarkets and oxygen supplies in hospitals in some parts of the country — as “popular movements [which] are the result of indignation and a feeling of injustice at how the electoral process took place.” He did not tell them to disband, but suggested that they avoid destroying property or “impeding the right to come and go.”
