Despite refusing to concede defeat in the recent elections, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has begun transition preparations to usher in the leftist government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Ciro Nogueira, his chief of staff, announced this after Mr Bolsonaro delivered a brief speech on Tuesday.
President Bolsonaro has authorised me – when requested, based on the law – to start the transition process,” Mr Nogueira said.
Mr Bolsonaro in his speech thanked his supporters for their support. He also addressed the demonstrations that have grounded activities in certain parts of the country, asking his supporters to demonstrate peacefully without engaging in “property destruction like the left.”
Peaceful demonstrations will always be welcome. But our methods cannot be those of the left, like property invasion, destruction of goods and restrictions on the right to come and go, he said.
Despite a lack of evidence, the president has long criticized Brazil’s electoral process as being riddled with fraud, and he implied that the left was attempting to rig the results prior to Sunday’s election.
His prophecy was later realized in the historic loss of Brazil’s closest political contest in modern history by 49.1% to Mr Da Silva’s 50.9%.
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