The president of Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Kassio Nunes Marques, has come out in defense of the security of the system and the "absolute normality" of the last presidential elections, emphasizing the body’s commitment to the "sovereign will of the electorate" in the face of fraud accusations launched by the former candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, who has gone to the United States to present himself as "leader of Brazil" in exile after his defeat.
In an official note, Nunes Marques has described the elections held last Sunday as "the most inclusive elections in the history of the Brazilian Republic". The judge has referred to the "instability in the final stretch of the vote" —in a veiled reference to the controversial extension of the ballot box opening hours—, but has stressed that, thanks to the decisions adopted and the technical capacity of the court, "it was possible to move forward with the counting and guarantee a safe electoral process".
"I inform you that all questions raised in accordance with due legal process will be analyzed and answered", the president of the TSE has assured. He has also recognized the work of officials throughout the territory, of the members of the polling stations and of the security forces, underlining that the entire procedure was carried out "respecting the legal and constitutional provisions".
Flávio Bolsonaro’s exile and his fraud allegations
The statement from the top official of Brazilian electoral justice comes just hours after Flávio Bolsonaro released a communiqué from the United States. The senator left Brazil, first passing through Argentina and Ecuador, after the order from the Supreme Court magistrate, Alexandre de Moraes, who demanded that he hand over his passport and barred him from leaving the country in the framework of a case for alleged money laundering.
In that text, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro has proclaimed himself "leader of Brazil" (after deleting an earlier version in which he even presented himself as "elected president") and has denounced a "repugnant electoral fraud". In his view, there is a "mathematical impossibility" that the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, could have managed to reverse the polls, blaming for this the judicial decision to extend voting hours, a measure that Bolsonaro’s own campaign had also requested for five specific states.
Presenting himself as a victim of a "witch hunt" and of a "coup d'état" supposedly orchestrated by the Workers' Party (PT) and the Supreme Court, Flávio Bolsonaro has said that he intends to organize the opposition from exile, taking as a reference figures such as the Venezuelan María Corina Machado or the French general Charles De Gaulle. In his statement, the politician also expressed his gratitude for the support and collaboration of former U.S. president Donald Trump and Argentine president Javier Milei.