A much-awaited report by Brazil’s Defence Ministry has failed to indicate recent ballots were fraudulent, scuppering the far-right’s hopes of delegitimising the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The military sent the 63-page report to Brazil’s electoral authorities late on Wednesday after days of speculation that it would back claims by extremist president Jair Bolsonaro that the election was tainted.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has spent months hinting he would not accept a loss at the polls and frequently called into question the reliability of Brazil’s electronic ballot boxes, even though he provided no evidence they could be tampered with.
His supporters hoped the military would back up these claims but the only note of doubt was a weak suggestion a committee be formed to ensure the source code used in the boxes cannot be tampered with.
Brazil’s senior electoral official said they “received with satisfaction the final report from the Defence Ministry that, in common with all the other monitoring agencies, does not point to any fraud or inconsistency in electronic ballot boxes or in the 2022 electoral process”. » | Andrew Downie in São Paulo | Thursday, November 10, 2022
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