Brazil’s president Bolsonaro begins transition plan, refuses to concede defeat

Despite not conceding defeat in the just concluded elections, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro has begun transition plans to usher in the leftist government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

His chief of staff, Ciro Nogueira, announced this after Mr Bolsonaro gave a brief speech on Tuesday. 

“President Bolsonaro has authorised me – when requested, based on the law – to start the transition process,” Mr Nogueira said. 

Mr Bolsonaro in his speech thanked his supporters for their support. He also addressed the demonstrations that have grounded activities in certain parts of the country, asking his supporters to demonstrate peacefully without engaging in “property destruction like the left.”

“Peaceful demonstrations will always be welcome. But our methods cannot be those of the left, like property invasion, destruction of goods and restrictions on the right to come and go,” he said. 

Despite a lack of evidence, the president has long criticised Brazil’s electoral process as being replete with fraud, and prior to Sunday’s election, he had implied that the left was attempting to rig the results.

His prophecy would later find expression in an historic loss of Brazil’s closest political contest in its modern history by 49.1 per cent to Mr Da Silva’s 50.9.