(Brasilia) The President of Brazil’s Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) announced on Sunday the lifting of filtering barriers by the Federal Road Police (PRF) which had “delayed the arrival of voters” at polling stations for the presidential election, while the left cried foul.
Posted at 4:18 p.m.
“The lifting of these operations has been decided, to avoid voter delays” in the offices, said Alexandre de Moraes, president of the TSE, at a press conference, just over an hour before the office closed. of voting.
Leaders of the Workers’ Party (PT, left), relayed on social networks many videos of buses transporting voters at a standstill, especially in rural areas of the Northeast, electoral stronghold of the ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010).
“It is unacceptable what is happening at the moment in the Northeast,” lamented Lula, favorite in the polls, on his Telegram account.
But Judge Moraes specified that “no coach had to turn back” and that “all the voters were able to reach the polling stations”.
“There was no infringement of the right to vote,” he insisted, citing only “delays” as the only “possible prejudice”.
The president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, denounced on Twitter “a criminal operation of the PRF” and asked for “an extension of the opening of the polling stations” in the areas affected by the filter dams.
Earlier in the day, she had called for the arrest of PRF director Silvinei Vasques, who had posted an image in an Instagram story in which he called for a vote for far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, an opponent of Lula. in the second round, before deleting it.
“Let the Northeast vote”
The NGO Human Rights Watch expressed in a press release its “great concern” about “PRF operations that would delay or prevent voters’ access to polling stations”.
On social networks, many videos denouncing difficulties in the transport of voters in the Northeast have gone viral, with the hashtag #Deixeonordestevotar (let the Northeast vote).
“They intimidate people,” a woman says in a video where she says a pro-Lula sticker was ripped off her car windshield by a police officer.
Monster traffic jams have been recorded in Rio de Janeiro, particularly at the level of a filter dam installed on the bridge that connects the city to Niteroi, on the other side of the bay.
According to the daily O Globoa hundred natives of Querência, in the state of Mato Grosso (center-west), complained of not having been able to go to vote in the absence of public transport to bring them from their village to the polling station.
According to the daily Folha de S. Paulo, more than 500 filter barriers aimed at controlling coaches were registered at midday throughout the country, 70% more than in the first round, on October 2.
Nikolas Ferreira, bolsonarist recently elected deputy with the best score of the legislative election on October 2, for his part defended the traffic police: “the PRF stops coaches which have been chartered. Vote buying is an electoral crime. Congratulations to the PRF”.
Abstention in the poorer regions of the country is a factor that could prove decisive for the result of the second round. Many cities had thus decided to make public transport free.
“A coup is underway, with the use of the PRF to prevent poor people from voting Lula,” tweeted political scientist Christian Lynch.