MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolsonaro tells foreign diplomats about “unreliable” voting machine

We have time to solve the problem, with the participation of the Armed Forces, Bolsonaro argued

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro summoned some 40 foreign ambassadors to his Brasilia residence Monday. During the event, he gave yet another speech on the alleged cracks of the country's electronic voting system.

Less than three months before seeking reelection against former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party (PT), Bolsonaro doubled down on his attacks against the mechanism under which he was elected into office in 2018.

Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) sent the attending diplomats a detailed response to Bolsonaro's allegations.

“The system is totally vulnerable,” Bolsonaro said in his speech, as sources from Lula's camp suspect the incumbent head of state was already questioning the outcome of the elections like former US President Donald Trump did in 2020.

Lula is way ahead in all polls, some of which even believe he might win in the first round.

Although Bolsonaro's stance regarding voting machines is not new, telling foreign diplomatic missions about its alleged flaws was, even though no relevant cases of fraud have been confirmed in previous presidential or congressional elections.

“I know you want stability and this will only be achieved with transparency,” Bolsonaro told his guests at a conference that was also broadcast live on social media.

Bolsonaro's lecture was based on an old police investigation which proved that hackers had broken into the TSE's system in 2018, although the outcome of the elections was not altered.

By Tuesday afternoon, over 400,000 Internet viewers had watched the lecture.

”We want to correct flaws, we want transparency, real democracy. I am being accused of [planning a] coup all the time (...) I am questioning [the system beforehand] because we have time to solve the problem, with the participation of the Armed Forces,“ Bolsonaro argued.

TSE Chief Justice Edson Fachin replied that the country's political debate has been ”reduced by narratives that strain the social space“ and that there was an ”unacceptable electoral negationism.“

”It is time to say enough to disinformation. It is also time to say no to authoritarian populism, which endangers the conquest of the 1988 Constitution″, he added.

Fachin also spoke of a manifestation “of rumors without consistency” and of “authoritarian populism.” He mentioned the “unacceptable electoral negativism on the part of a public personality,” and insisted it was “very serious to make an accusation without any proof.”

Brazil adopted the electronic ballot box system in the 1996 municipal elections. In addition to offering a more agile result to the paper vote, no major security problems have been detected so far.

Foreign analysts agreed that there had never been a precedent of a president gathering ambassadors and diplomatic representatives to rant against members of other institutions, let alone announcing the possibility of not recognizing the results of the elections, which would constitute a coup d'état in case of defeat.

European, Asian, and Latin American diplomats quoted by O Estado de S. Paulo on condition of anonymity agreed Monday's event was a “mere act of electoral campaigning”, which in no way altered the confidence of their countries in the Brazilian voting system.