Bolsonaro recognizes Lula's victory and says he will lead the opposition

BarcelonaJair Bolsonaro's party has rectified and finally acknowledged the defeat in Brazil's presidential election. The far-right leader said he will lead the opposition to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro had stated on Sunday night that he would request the annulment of the elections and that it was "impossible" to recognize the results. But less than 24 hours later he backtracked, shortly after having received the endorsement of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, who joined in the accusations of "fraud".

Through a letter released on social media this Monday night, the president of the Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, stated, without mentioning Lula, that the party "recognizes the result proclaimed by the Superior Electoral Court", although he adds that "the questions raised must be duly clarified within a balanced and democratic political debate".

Lula won in the second round with 51.8% of the votes, against Bolsonaro's 48.2%, with a difference of more than four million votes and in a historic comeback for the progressive leader after having lost in the first round.

Sunday's voting day ended up being chaotic due to the deliberate reduction of the bus fleet by far-right mayors, with the aim of hindering the mobilization of the poorest voters, mostly Lula voters. Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin decided to extend the closing time of polling stations by two hours, which Bolsonaro labeled as "unacceptable" and used as an argument to initially demand an annulment of the results. But since the electronic ballot boxes were already closed, in the end only 4,068 additional votes could be counted during those two extra hours, according to the news portal UOL, that is, 0.003% of the 128 million votes.

According to Brazilian media, during this Monday Bolsonaro recalibrated his speech after listening to the moderate wing of the party and decided to abandon the strategy of challenging the election results. At night, he published a video on social media in which he says that he will "organize the opposition" to turn Congress and the Senate into the "fortress against the barbarism" that, according to him, will exist in the country "with four more years of Lula".

However, Bolsonaro has insisted that he will work to ensure that the justice system annuls Lula's candidacy due to the "abuses" he claims he has committed, among which he points to the "industrial complex of fake news" created by the ruling party's campaign and the "unprecedented abuses of political and economic power".

In this sense, the Liberal Party points out in its statement that the increase in public spending and social benefits promoted by Lula's government before the elections conditioned the fairness of the electoral race. "Jair Bolsonaro won the first round of the presidential elections," but this Sunday "the result was different, in a scenario marked by strongly electoralist measures, with economic and social impact," says the note. Thus, Bolsonaro is changing strategy: he no longer intends to annul the result of the elections, but rather seeks the disqualification of Lula with the argument that he abused his power as president to guarantee his reelection.