Trump questions Lula's win: Brazil's election looked rigged

U.S. President Donald Trump questioned Brazil's electoral process, saying Sunday's Oct. 25 vote that handed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva a new term looked rigged. “It looked like another rigged election, frankly,” Trump told reporters on Monday, according to Reuters, without presenting any evidence.

Trump criticized the way the vote was organized and the decision to extend it by two hours. He said he did not take sides but that “the appearance was very bad.” Asked whether he would interfere in Brazilian politics, he replied that he does not govern Brazil but the United States, and added that he has good relations with Lula: “I like Lula.”

The vote in numbers

Lula won with 51.8% of the vote against Flávio Bolsonaro's 48.2%, a margin of more than 4 million votes. According to Pedro Burgos, a professor at Insper, fewer than 35,000 votes, about 0.03% of the total, were cast in the two extra hours of voting ordered by the Supreme Court.

Brazilian Vice President Geraldo Alckmin dismissed Trump's statements as “totally wrong” and unfounded, defending the country's electoral process. Flávio Bolsonaro had initially refused to concede and said he would seek to annul the result, but the Liberal Party later said it recognizes Lula's victory. Party leader Valdemar Costa Neto said the result is recognized but that the issues raised need to be properly clarified.

Reuters has previously reported that officials in the U.S. State Department led a campaign to return the Bolsonaro family to power, although Trump himself did not openly endorse Flávio Bolsonaro before the vote.