President Jair Bolsonaro, who has heavily borrowed from Donald Trump’s playbook in his effort to discredit Brazil’s electoral system, is currently losing something more than yesterday’s election: time.
To varying degrees, several of Mr. Bolsonaro’s most prominent allies have already recognized President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory, as have the Superior Electoral Court, the heads of both the House and Senate, and several major world leaders.
But Mr. Bolsonaro, more than 12 hours after the result became final, has yet to open his mouth.
Brazil’s electoral system makes the strategy of a U.S.-style “Big Lie” much more difficult. Elections are nationally organized by a federal court, and mostly run by career employees and non-partisan poll workers. All voters use electronic voting machines, and the entire election is carried out in a single day. There is no early voting, no mail-in ballots, and no possibility of recounts. And secretaries appointed by governors have no role in the election whatsoever.
But if President Bolsonaro is still planning to publicly refuse the result, he’s running out of time and allies.
Senator-elect Damares Alves, his former human rights minister, was the most explicit in conceding defeat, tweeting: “we lost an election” and “Bolsonaro will leave the presidency in January.”
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