How Bolsonaro took Brazil up to the brink, then stepped back
When Brazil’s electoral court announced Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s election win last Sunday, the defeated President Jair Bolsonaro stayed home and said nothing.
Ministers who tried to visit him found the gates to the official residence in Brasilia shut. At around 10pm the lights were turned off.
He didn’t concede the following day either, and amid the growing uncertainty created by the president’s silence, some of his supporters began to protest and question the results, taking to the streets and blocking highways.
This account is based on interviews with Bolsonaro allies and Brasilia insiders, who asked not to be named discussing private meetings. They paint the picture of a president who was deeply convinced he would come back from a first-round loss to win the election and remained in shock once the outcome wasn’t what he expected.
On the streets, some of the president’s supporters even called on the armed forces to intervene to overturn the election result, a dangerous tactic in a country that had military rule as recently as the 1980s.
By then, several key players, including Bolsonaro allies and the US government, had acknowledged Lula’s victory, making it harder for the president to challenge the result. Fears that he was ready to do so had been fuelled by the former army captain himself, who had repeatedly questioned the integrity of Brazil’s voting system, even complaining of unfair treatment by electoral authorities.
Lower House speaker Arthur Lira, a supporter of the president, congratulated the leftist leader minutes after the results were announced.
To diffuse a situation that was becoming increasingly alarming, senior members of Brazil’s political elite and judiciary came together to convince Bolsonaro to pull the country back from the brink of chaos.