> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://goodoil.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Brazil Election Done but Not Dusted [Updated] - URL: https://goodoil.news/brazil-election-done-but-not-dusted/ - Published: 2026-10-29T03:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-29T02:59:59.000Z - Description: Brazil’s socialist doesn’t at all act like a tinpot dictatorship. - Author: Lushington Brady - Tags: World Politics The Brazilian presidential election has been declared, with octogenarian socialist **Lula da Silva** claiming victory in a turnaround runoff election after the first round failed to deliver a big enough win to challenger **Flávio Bolsonaro**. Unsurprisingly, in such close result (the margin was almost exactly identical to the number of invalid votes), the loser is crying foul. The result completely defied precedent: the first time a candidate has won the first round but lost the runoff. Equally unsurprisingly, the victor and the legacy media are adamant that there’s nothing to see here. While sour grapes are an obvious explanation, there’s also the undeniable suspicion that’s inevitable when there is not just the undeniable potential for fraud in an almost-entirely electronic voting system, which equally suspiciously delivers counting results in a scant couple of hours, but so much else is unusual about the whole process. Especially toxic in recent Brazilian elections is the chaotic Supreme Court, currently at war with itself, while simultaneously constantly intruding on the electoral process. The court, which is accused of being stacked with leftist sympathisers, has held previous president Jair Bolsonaro under house arrest, while barring him from running elections. The same court also stepped in at the last minute, ordering polling stations in some districts to hold open hours past the official cut-off date. Finally, in a bizarre move, the Supreme Court ordered the confiscation of the losing candidate’s passport. Nothing quite says thriving, robust, South American democracy quite like having federal agents bash on the runner-up’s door to strip him of his travel documents the morning after the ballots are tallied. Senator Bolsonaro had barely finished visiting his ailing father, before the state apparatus ambushed him. > [“I was ordered](https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/flavio-bolsonaro-ordered-to-surrender-passport-after-election-loss-6109114?ref=goodoil.news) right on the street to hand over my passports, and I’m also prohibited from leaving the country,” Bolsonaro said in a video posted on Instagram. The pretext concocted by Supreme Court judge **Alexandre de Moraes**, Lula’s left-hand man – his former personal lawyer, in fact – and the imperious grand inquisitor of the Brazilian bench, was comic in its absurdity: Flávio’s brother had offhandedly joked on an American podcast that the senator had better flee if Lula won. On the basis of a throwaway quip on a podcast, the black-robed junta slapped an exit ban on an elected federal senator. One must admire the delicate, eggshell egos of Brasília’s judicial class: they brook no levity, particularly when presiding over a banana-republic makeover. Yet the real circus began hours earlier, just as the booths were supposed to lock their doors at five o’clock. In stepped Justice **Cristiano Zanin**, a dependable friend of the ruling apparatus, issuing a sudden unilateral decree to extend voting by two whole hours under the guise of municipal transport hiccups. The ensuing shambles was entirely predictable. Polling stations that had already closed stayed closed, while others in handpicked districts stayed open, turning uniform federal rules into an arbitrary lottery. The electoral court dutifully hit the pause button on publishing tally sheets and Bolsonaro scrutineers found themselves unceremoniously evicted from counting rooms as the digital black box churned out its verdict. **Donald Trump**, surveying the southern wreckage from Mar-a-Lago, observed with characteristic frankness that the entire show had the distinct aroma of a stitch-up. Indeed, when a supreme bench appointed largely by the ruling cabal takes it upon itself to rewrite balloting rules on the fly, lock out observers and immediately silence the opposition, ordinary folk are entitled to wonder what, precisely, separates Brasília from Caracas. Bolsonaro, unsurprisingly, has refused to kiss the ring, demanding the whole sordid affair be scrutinised and annulled. > “The competition has to be fair, but that is not what happened. It wasn’t me who lost: it was the system that won,” Bolsonaro said. He is not wrong. When the judicial branch, the bureaucratic apparatus and the state-aligned media form a three-ring syndicate, the ballot box ceases to be an instrument of the popular will and becomes merely theatrical set dressing. Lula may boast of slaying ‘denialism and lies’, but when your triumph requires 11th-hour judicial interventions and seizing your rival’s passport before the ink on the tally sheet is dry, people are entitled to be suspicious. The Lula government and the legacy media insist all is above-board, and perhaps it is. But elections must have the consequence of all involved, especially voters. Elections run like a chook raffle in a South Auckland bloodhouse may deliver legitimate results in spite of everything, but they do not inspire confidence. ### Update: Bolsonaro has fled to Argentina, reportedly en route to the US, after the victorious Lula ordered his passport seized the day after the election. --- 💡 ****If you enjoyed this article please share it using the share buttons at the top or bottom of the article.**