Brazil's Election DISASTER

Was the Brazilian election stolen? Welcome to American Uncovered, I'm Chris Chappell. On Sunday, Brazil's left-wing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, won re-election, beating Senator Flavio Bolsonaro 51.8% to 48.2%. This came as a bit of a surprise. Just three weeks ago, Lula lost. In the first round of voting, Flavio Bolsonaro beat him by more than 2 million votes. Polling ahead of the second round had Bolsonaro leading Lula. The big center-right parties, the progressives, Brazil Union, the Republicans, and Podemos, or the We Can Party, all lined up behind him. And so did some of the candidates knocked out in the first round, including two former governors and a best-selling author. Now when you look at how South America's elections have been going over the past few years, there was a real sense of inevitability. Across the continent, the Left has been getting thrown out of power. Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia. Brazil was supposed to be next. Instead, in just three weeks, Lula somehow picked up more than 10 million new votes. Bolsonaro, by contrast, gained less than 4 million. So what the hell happened? Well, on Election Day, Lula's campaign was complaining that bus service had been cut in several cities, and that people couldn't get to the polls. So they filed a petition at 1.22pm to have voting extended in three cities. They then asked Brazil's Electoral Court, the TSE, to extend the time people would be allowed to vote where there were disruptions beyond the three cities. The TSE didn't rule fast enough, so Lula's people just went over the TSE's head straight to the Supreme Court. This is where we meet Cristiano Zanin. He was Lula's personal defense lawyer in the corruption case that landed Lula in prison in 2018. When he returned to power in 2023, Lula appointed him to the Supreme Court. Anyway, back to the election. Lula's campaign filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court at 4.22 in the afternoon to extend voting to all voting stations. About 10 minutes later, Zanin was picked to handle it. The polls were scheduled to close at 5, but at 5.03, Zanin's order that every polling station in Brazil to keep taking votes until 7 was released to the public. However, just one minute later, The Electoral Prosecutor's Office weighed in against the extension. Zanin then narrowed the order to just keep polls open in places where there were still people in line to vote. The president of the TSE, the guy actually in charge of running the election, was not happy. He said there was no regulation authorizing any extension, and that never in the history of the TSE has there been any extension. It is worth noting that Lula's campaign wasn't the only one asking for extra time that day. Less than an hour before Lula's campaign filed their request, Flavio Bolsonaro's campaign also asked the TSE to extend voting in nearly 20 cities in Brazil's south, where Flavio's support was its strongest. The reason for that request was flooding. Heavy rains hit the region just days before. This caused road closures, power outages, and election officials had to move thousands of voters to new polling stations. The TSE never ruled on Flavio's request before the polls were scheduled to close. And unlike Lula's campaign, his team didn't get in front of the Supreme Court. Now you might say, wait, didn't Zanin extend voting for the whole country? Wouldn't that cover Flavio's cities, too? On paper, yes, but remember, Zanin's order only applied to polling places that were still open at 5pm, which is to say, places where people were still standing in line. So think about who that would help. In a big city where the buses are running late, voters are showing up late, but they're still able to get in line. So those polling places stay open, and they get two more hours. But in a town where the roads are flooded, voters can't get there at all. If there's nobody in line, the polls close at 5. And once a voting machine is closed, it can't be reopened. To be clear, the number of voters affected by the flood that we know about is in the thousands, not millions. Whether or not those voters made it to the polls, the results would have been the same. But this does show how the rules were bent on election day. One campaign went to a judge who used to be its candidate's lawyer and got an order that worked for its voters. The other campaign's voters were literally left out in the rain. And that could be a real problem for Lula. As one Brazilian election law professor told the New York Times, the election could be annulled if the margin is very narrow and it's shown that polling stations stayed open longer in areas that strongly favor one candidate." In the words of an election lawyer also interviewed by the Times, this is an extremely serious, critical situation. Bolsonaro at first refused to concede, saying he tried to annul the vote. But he quickly walked that statement back after President Trump showed a lack of interest in who won the election. Conceding the election didn't do much to keep him from incurring Lula's wrath, though. Brazil's High Court demanded he hand over his passports to the authorities. This order came at the request of one of Lula's allies, who wanted to prevent Flávio from escaping to the US. That way, he could be arrested for plotting against Brazil's national sovereignty. But he's apparently fled the country already. Now, it's tempting to chalk this whole mess of an election up to incompetence on the part of Brazil's election authorities. But this is Lula we're talking about. And Lula has quite the history of corruption. His first term was rocked by a congressional vote-buying scheme that ended with his own chief of staff being convicted. Then you had Operation Car Wash, a giant kickback scheme at the state oil company. In 2017, Lula himself was convicted of corruption and money laundering. And he spent about a year and a half in prison. And how did Lula get out of prison so early? It wasn't because he was found innocent. No no no. In 2021, Brazil's Supreme Court threw out his convictions on a technicality. They said he'd been tried in the wrong court. He was never retried. Again, not because he was found innocent, but mostly because the statute of limitations had run out. In Brazil, it's cut in half once you turn 70. Which is kind of insane. Apparently Lula here is too old to face justice for his myriad corruption scandals, but still young enough to be president. So was Brazil's Supreme Court acting as a referee or Lula's teammate? And did that make the difference? Well, let's look at the numbers, because they are certainly...interesting. Flavio's brother Eduardo Bolsonaro laid them out in a post on X. Between the people who voted for other candidates in the first round, And the people who didn't vote at all, or spoiled their ballots, there was a pool of about 14 million votes up for grabs in the runoff. And Lula somehow managed to take a whopping 71% of them. Also worth noting is that some of Lula's biggest gains came from his base in the economically poor Northeast, where he picked up about 3 million votes. In that region, around 40% of the people living there receive benefits through something called Bolsa Família, Brazil's massive welfare program. And less than a month before the first round, Lula's government raised payments under the program by 15%. That timing matters, since researchers have known for years that Bolsa Família is good for Lula at the ballot box. A study of his 2006 reelection found that people on the program were much more likely to vote for him. Naturally, Bolsonaro accused Lula of effectively buying the votes of the poor just weeks before an election. So maybe this was all just a case of good old fashioned vote buying. Or maybe the Lula campaign got up to some Macaco business during those two hours where the polls were kept open. Until there's a full investigation, we can't be sure. But regardless, what happens now? Like I said, Flávio reportedly left the country, so he isn't really in a position to challenge the election's results. Another party could ask for a technical audit to determine whether the extension affected the outcome, which could lead to the election being annulled. Or it could bring an abuse of power case that could disqualify Lula's ticket even after he takes office. But if Flávio decides to join his brother in the US, maybe he could snag a meeting with Marco Rubio. The Secretary of State has offered the people of Latin America, disappointed by failed promises and corruption, an opportunity to create the change they desire through a discreet partnership with the CIA. Just something to think about. But what do you think? Leave your comments below. I read as many as I can. But I read every comment on AmericaUncovered.tv, where you'll get access to thousands of episodes ad-free, plus a community chat, live streams, and more. Just click this button here or the link below. Once again, I'm Chris Chappell. Thank you for watching America Uncovered.