Tel-Chai Nation

The defense ministry and military in Brazil has conducted an investigation into election fraud, and was willing to turn up some very eyebrow raising results:

The Armed Forces of Brazil concluded an audit of the 2022 presidential election this week that neither confirmed nor denied the existence of any irregularities in the race. In a statement on Thursday, however, the Defense Ministry emphasized that its report had not “excluded the possibility of fraud.”

Brazil concluded one of the world’s dirtiest presidential races on October 30 between incumbent conservative Jair Bolsonaro and far-left radical former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula narrowly defeated Bolsonaro in the first round of voting in early October, but did not avoid a runoff, which he also won by about 2 million votes, or less than two percent, on October 30. Lula had accused Bolsonaro of “pedophile behavior” and his campaign had branded Bolsonaro a cannibal during the runoff portion of the race.

Lula is a convicted felon, sentenced to over 20 years in prison for corruption crimes allegedly committed while he was president between 2003 and 2011, but the nation’s supreme court overturned the sentence on a technicality last year, allowing him to run for the commander in chief position. The court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), has never presented exonerating evidence or challenged evidence indicating Lula used bribe money to buy a luxury beachfront duplex while president. The nation’s electoral oversight body, the STF-controlled Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), banned Bolsonaro’s campaign from referring to Lula as “corrupt” or a “thief,” but did not censor Lula’s unsubstantiated claims that Bolsonaro is a “pedophile.”

This is certainly alarming, when Lula is allowed to make obscene accusations without concrete proof against Bolsonaro, but the latter cannot criticize the former for criminal acts he committed. It's definitely telling when the election committee is that corrupt to enable such embarrassments to boot. And it goes without saying that employment of offensive language in these campaigns is getting way out of hand.

In a report on the election submitted on Wednesday and sent to the TSE by Defense Minister Paulo Sérgio Nogueira, the armed forces assert that they did not find any evidence that proves fraud or any election irregularities occurred with the voting machines in question. On Thursday, however, the military issued another statement clarifying that it had also found “vulnerabilities” and could not discount the possibility of fraud, following multiple reports in corporate media outlets concluding that the report had guaranteed the security of the vote.

Well it's certainly good the Brazilian army's willing to something's rotten in Denmark. There's a lot of very fishy details going on here, and the court that cleared Lula to run seems to have done so deliberately. What was going on here? The Brazilian public is right to protest this injustice. This is most blatant example of corruption and illegal action in motion here.

Labels: Latin America, military, political corruption