(Rio de Janeiro) The left-wing ex-Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Friday he feared “trouble” if he won over outgoing head of state Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential election, the first of which round takes place on Sunday.
Posted at 1:18 p.m.
A favorite in the polls, Lula, 76, is seeking a third term, after having governed the country from 2003 to 2010.
At the time, he was elected by defeating representatives of the PSDB, a center-right party, in the second round.
“With the PSDB, we played politics. When they won, they celebrated, and when they lost, they let the winners celebrate. Bolsonaro does not behave like that, and he can try to stir up trouble during the transition “before the inauguration of the president-designate, Lula said at a press conference in Rio de Janeiro (southeast).
He is counting on an intense campaign centered on the “useful vote” to win in the first round. If he does not succeed, the second round will take place on October 30.
In case of victory, he will have to wait until 1er January to take office, during the investiture in Brasilia.
“It will be much more difficult than in 2002 (during his first presidential victory), when we had experienced an extraordinary, peaceful transition with the PSDB. I fear that we do not have the same facility with Bolsonaro, ”insisted Lula.
Jair Bolsonaro has multiplied the attacks against the system of electronic ballot boxes in force in Brazil since 1996, with which he was however elected several times deputy, then president hands down in 2018.
He notably mentioned “fraud” – without ever providing proof – fueling fears that he would not recognize the result in the event of defeat.
“The results of the polls will be respected provided that the elections are clean and transparent,” declared the far-right president during his campaign.
With the exponential increase in gun licenses under President Bolsonaro, experts fear violent incidents, such as the invasion of the Capitol in Washington after the defeat of Donald Trump in the US presidential election in January 2021.
Friday, the penultimate day of the campaign, Lula was to go to the Northeast, to Salvador de Bahia, then to Fortaleza.
Bolsonaro for his part took the lead of a motorcade in Poços de Caldas, a spa town in Minas Gerais (southeast).