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President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday underwent a surgical procedure to remove a leukoplakia, a type of lesion in the larynx. He was discharged from the hospital on Monday. A medical report released by his press office says he is doing well.

The lesion was located on Lula’s left vocal fold and was identified before his trip to Egypt, where he attended the UN Climate Conference (COP27) last week. In addition to the injury, his larynx also presented inflammation points, attributed to the strain of this year’s election campaign.

In 2011, Lula was diagnosed with throat cancer. He underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy and was considered cured the following year. In his most recent checkup, doctors found that the cancer was in complete remission, and there were no signs of new tumors.

At the time, doctors considered that the disease could affect Lula’s voice, which had become hoarser over the years. He was a smoker for 50 years.

After his cancer diagnosis, Lula started to do physical activity daily — a routine he presents on his social media. 

On January 1, 2023, Lula will take office at age 77, the oldest president in Brazilian history on Inauguration Day. But he likes to repeat that he has the “physical vigor of a 20-year-old.”

The swift disclosure of Lula’s condition seems to be a departure from tradition. Throughout history, presidents who have suffered health issues — even in the mass media era — have tended to conceal their condition, thus fueling conspiracy theories.

The most notorious such case took place in 1985. On the eve of his inauguration, president-elect Tancredo Neves was rushed to hospital with severe abdominal pain. He would die without ever taking office. 

Outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro has battled with health issues since being stabbed on the campaign trail in 2018. Early in his administration, the health status of the president was all too transparent, with his son Carlos publishing daily photos of his father eating, signing documents, and even meeting with cabinet ministers while in hospital.

Later, the approach changed, with no photos of hospital visits or presidential medical bulletins. The president even put his own vaccination records under the seal of secrecy, and to this day, it is unknown whether or not Mr. Bolsonaro has taken a Covid vaccine. 

Brazil’s Federal Highway Police (PRF) on Friday tallied four demonstrations totally blocking traffic on federal roads, as well as 13 other demonstrations partially obstructing roads. They are held by supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro, contesting the election results and calling for a military coup. 

President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won the presidency with 50.9 percent of the vote, is to take office on January 1.

The full blockades are in the cities of Porto Velho and Presidente Médici, both in the Amazonian state of Rondônia; Caruaru, in the Northeastern state of Pernambuco, and Lucas do Rio Verde, in the Center-Western state of Mato Grosso.

Since President Bolsonaro lost re-election on October 30, the highway police have worked to undo 1,158 such demonstrations nationwide. The force, however, was accused of condoning the anti-democratic protests in the election’s aftermath. 

As The Brazilian Report showed, there were more officers on duty during Election Day (when the PRF were accused of staging road inspections — mostly in Lula-leaning areas — with the purpose of helping Mr. Bolsonaro win) than on the days following the vote. That allowed protesters to disrupt supply chains and create shortages.

Silvinei Vasques, the PRF head, is under investigation for alleged malfeasance.

Over 60 percent of all cargo is transported by trucks in Brazil, making widespread roadblocks a massive economic risk. 

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on November 12 froze the assets of 43 individuals and companies suspected of sponsoring the putschist demonstrations — both on federal roads and around military facilities. In his decision, Justice Moraes quoted PRF intelligence as saying the business owners in question provide meals, tents, and trucks to the demonstrators. 

Justice Moraes also ordered that the Federal Police interrogate suspects.

President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s transition team on Wednesday confirmed investors’ worst fears, presenting a constitutional amendment proposal that would allow the new government to spend on social programs outside the federal spending cap. 

According to many economists, however, the bill, as drafted, would also essentially give the new government carte blanche to spend as much as it wants and for as long as it wants. 

It will be up to Congress to decide whether to allow this to happen only in 2023, or for the next four years, as Lula wants. Meanwhile, Lula once again relativized fiscal austerity during a speech at the COP27 climate conference. 

As expected, such a proposal brought the Brazilian stock market and currency down. 

At 4:10 pm on Thursday, the Ibovespa, Brazil’s main stock index, was down by 2.3 percent. The Brazilian currency, meanwhile, is see-sawing, up by 0.74 percent at the same time, after having plunged around noon. This currency rally was prompted, among other factors, by investors believing that Congress will not give Lula the “license to spend” he is hoping for.

What worries the market most is the lack of predictability that comes with the proposal.

In addition to the effects on the Ibovespa and the Brazilian real, Brazil’s two-year government bond yield skyrocketed over 14 percent, above the current benchmark interest rate of 13.75 percent. This happened because investors understand that higher spending will pressure inflation and, consequently, interest rates.

When things are normal, short-term debt has a lower yield than longer-term debt — since the investor lending the money is taking on less risk.

Valdemar Costa Neto, the chairman of President Jair Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, is once again playing a double game in relation to unfounded accusations against the integrity of Brazil’s electoral process.

Right-wing news website O Antagonista on Tuesday reported that the Liberal Party plans to sue the Superior Electoral Court in a push to annul the election’s results. According to the story, an investigation commissioned by the party found that older electronic voting machines did not function correctly and used a different source code from the one in the newer models.

Audits by the Federal Accounts Court and the Armed Forces found no evidence of fraud in this year’s elections or discrepancies between printed vote receipts and results published online. Additionally, all voting machines use the same source code.

Brazil’s elections require about half a million electronic voting machines. The models are periodically and gradually replaced each election cycle, so in every election, there are different generations of machines being used at the same time.

A conspiracy theory circulated online just after President Bolsonaro lost re-election on October 30, claiming he had a better performance in the newest electronic voting machines. The conspiracy makes no sense from the start. The supposed malicious actors desiring to favor the left-wing opposition could have simply postponed the adoption of the newer machines and ran the election exclusively with older models.

According to news website Metrópoles, Mr. Costa Neto later on Tuesday sent a message to lawmakers saying the investigation commissioned by the party was not yet concluded and that the findings published by O Antagonista were “obsolete” and “unsigned.”

Just before the election, Mr. Costa Neto played a similar game. A two-page document with the Liberal Party’s letterhead was initially leaked to the press, with several false allegations of electoral fraud. Mr. Costa Neto then told the Electoral Court that “technical staff” hired by his party were solely responsible for the document.

Benedito Gonçalves, Brazil’s electoral ombudsman, rebuked Mr. Costa Neto’s attempt to evade responsibility for that document. Justice Gonçalves also ordered Mr. Costa Neto to explain how the party paid for the audit.

Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin announced on Wednesday a new series of appointments to President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s transition team. 

The picks for the group responsible for overseeing agricultural matters are a clear attempt to extend a hand to Congress, with some names hailing from the ‘Big Center’ ideologically-fluid group of self-serving parties. 

Two appointees — both former agriculture ministers — belong to Progressistas, a ‘Big Center’ party that is the political outfit of President Jair Bolsonaro’s chief of staff, Ciro Nogueira: Kátia Abreu, an outgoing senator, and Congressman Neri Geller. Senator Carlos Fávaro, from the Social Democratic Party, also a Big Center party, has also been named to the agricultural transition team.

Both parties took part in Lula’s election campaign. 

The three names mentioned above are representatives of Mato Grosso, Brazil’s leading agricultural state. The transition team plans to invite more participants from other essential agricultural states in coming weeks.

The incoming Lula administration can name up to 50 people paid by the public purse to coordinate the handover of power. 

Other members announced by Mr. Alckmin have previously occupied positions in the federal government or served terms in Congress. This is the case of Evandro Gussi, a former federal lawmaker who is now CEO of Unica, an organization representing the sugar cane industry, and of two former directors of the government agricultural research center Embrapa, Silvio Crestana and Tatiana de Abreu Sá.

There is also a rural development team, which will be responsible for coordinating social and environmental issues with agribusiness. 

This team includes individuals linked to social movements and academia, such as Luiz Gomes de Moura, a professor at the Federal University of Brasília, and José Josivaldo Oliveira, a leader of the movement for people affected by dams (MAB).

A day after releasing its “audit” of the voting system, admitting that no evidence of election fraud was found, the Defense Ministry released a new statement on Thursday highlighting that the Armed Forces “do not rule out the possibility of fraud” having taken place.

Although it does not bring anything new to the table, the new statement serves to fire up groups of President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters who do not accept the electoral result. On social media, users understood the move as a dog whistle for pro-Bolsonaro demonstrators to continue their street rallies — calling for a military coup.

Since President Jair Bolsonaro lost his re-election campaign, protesters have mobilized themselves in hundreds of roadblocks — which were only fully cleared only two days ago — and in demonstrations in front of army barracks across the country. They call on the Armed Forces to intervene to “re-establish law and order.”

Commanded by General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, an ally of Mr. Bolsonaro, the Defense Ministry is usually restrained in its public positions. A second statement in 24 hours is no ordinary gesture.

“[Mr.] Bolsonaro was upset by the report that did not say the elections were rigged, and ordered his dispatcher at the Defense Ministry to release a second statement, in order to produce the ‘Big Lie’ and feed fanatical Sebastianism,” commented political scientist Christian Lynch.

Since he lost the election, the president has become more reclusive than usual and has made few public appearances. For his supporters, the gesture is understood as a coded message that he, as the country’s leader, cannot directly encourage putschist protests at the risk of being punished – but they, his voters, could.

The Supreme Court has been quick to react. Roughly six hours after the Defense Ministry’s Thursday statement, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered that law enforcement agencies in Brasília must unblock all streets and roads still obstructed by anti-democratic protesters.”

The ruling comes amid reports that [115 trucks headed to the federal capital] to reinforce the anti-democratic protests,” the Supreme Court tweeted. “The justice determined the identification of truck owners so that they can be fined BRL 100,000 (USD 18,600) for every hour they fail to comply.”

President Jair Bolsonaro appointed lawyer André Ramos Tavares as an understudy justice of the Superior Electoral Court. The president was obliged to select a candidate from a three-person list drawn up by the Supreme Court, and Mr. Tavares was the best-voted out of the trio. 

Brazil’s top electoral court comprises seven justices — three from the Supreme Court, two from the Superior Court of Justice (the country’s second-highest judicial body), and two lawyers. It has an equal number of understudies.

Despite being on his way out of the presidency, Mr. Bolsonaro faces multiple accusations of electoral crimes — including abuse of the state apparatus in his re-election campaign and his alleged involvement in an illegal misinformation network. If convicted, Mr. Bolsonaro could become ineligible for office.

Mr. Ramos is a law professor at the University of São Paulo and previously worked as head of the presidency’s Public Ethics Committee. He has close ties to Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lewandowski, appointed to a seat on the court by President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during his first term in March 2006.

Mr. Ramos has already signed legal opinions commissioned by Lula’s Workers’ Party. In one of them, he defended Lula’s candidacy in 2018 after the politician had lost his political rights following corruption and money laundering convictions, which were since quashed. 

In another opinion, he criticized the impeachment process against former President Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s handpicked successor.

President Jair Bolsonaro has for years tried to sow distrust in Brazil’s electronic voting system (which in nearly 30 years of use has never faced credible fraud allegations). 

Under the president’s auspices, the Armed Forces decided to carry out an unofficial audit of the voting system, despite having no constitutional mandate to do so. They did not release their findings after the first round, saying they would only do so after the runoff. 

In a statement published on Monday, the Defense Ministry promised to present its report on November 9. The department has denied multiple information requests presented by The Brazilian Report. Still, it did say that the unofficial audit cost BRL 75,600 (USD 14,800) to the public purse, between per diem rates and plane tickets for the 30 officers involved in the audit.

While audits by the Federal Accounts Court found no discrepancies between data from electoral machines and the published official results, military commanders have echoed Mr. Bolsonaro’s conspiracy theories about the country’s voting machines.

Over the weekend, the president promised supporters that he would do everything that is legal to fight. Many political observers fear this could mean that the Armed Forces’ audit may raise issues with the vote as a way of giving Mr. Bolsonaro a fighting platform — especially since he has yet to explicitly concede the election. 

The Defense Ministry says its work “aims to provide a precise, reliable and collaborative result to the Superior Electoral Court, compatible with the immense relevance of the theme for the Brazilian nation.”