Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said Tuesday that he would “continue to fulfill all the commandments of our constitution” in a short speech at the presidential palace in Brasilia.
This is coming after days of silence following his election loss to the leftist former leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
He did not explicitly concede defeat, though the event appeared to signal his intention to cooperate with the transfer of power.
Taking the podium after the President, chief of staff Ciro Nogueira said that he would work with the new government and is waiting for Lula da Silva’s transition team to begin the handover.
“President Jair Messias Bolsonaro authorized me, when it is time, based on the law, to start the transition process,” Nogueira said.
Notably, Bolsonaro’s brief address did not contest the vote result. Instead, he thanked those who voted for him and hit out at critics.
“I have always been labeled undemocratic and, unlike my accusers, I have always played within the four lines of the constitution,” he said.
He did not congratulate Lula da Silva, who won with 50.9% of the vote, while Bolsonaro gained 49.1%.
The President-elect received the most votes in Brazilian history – more than 60 million votes, breaking his own record from 2006 by almost two million votes, according to the election authority’s final tally.
‘He wants to show strength’
Bolsonaro’s initial silence had contributed to fears that he would not cooperate with the transfer of power, after making unfounded claims prior to the vote about electoral fraud.
While his speech on Tuesday was short, experts speculated the reasons to why he refrained from explicitly conceding or contesting the election result.
“Bolsonaro wants to maintain this illusion that he was wronged, and that’s why he lost. He wants to show strength and in the culture of this movement, admitting you lost is to show weakness,” Brian Winter, the editor in chief of Americas Quarterly, told CNN.
“By saying that he’s going to respect the Constitution and by discouraging violence at some of the protests that have been happening, I think that (Bolsonaro) essentially paves the way now for a relatively normal transition,” Winter said.
Bruna Santos, a senior advisor at the Wilson Institute’s Brazil Center, said Bolsonaro was likely thinking of the long-term future of his movement.
“Bolsonarismo is a strong opposition force and got even stronger after this election despite Bolsonaro’s loss,” she said.
In the last legislative elections, Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party increased its representatives in the lower house from 76 to 99, while in the Senate it doubled from seven members to 14. Though Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party has also increased representation in both houses, conservative-leaning politicians will dominate the next legislature overall.
Brazilian lawmakers and some Bolsonaro allies have already recognized Lula da Silva’s win.
Brazilian Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco publicly congratulated Lula da Silva and his supporters, as has Chamber of Deputies President Arthur Lira – a close Bolsonaro ally.
