About 3,000 people marched along Copacabana Beach, most without masks, and dressed in yellow and green, the colors of the national flag, demanding “more transparency” in the voting and recount system, as there had previously been “suspicions of fraud.”, the protesters noted.
Bolsonaro, who plans to be re-elected in 2022, is not calling for a return to paper voting, but a receipt after each vote must be printed in an electronic ballot box, so that votes can actually be counted.
“Electronic voting is stealing!” Roxana Guimarães, a 45-year-old nurse who followed the show commented, voting with printed receipts is not complicated, people will adapt.
Some political analysts believe that the country’s leader is paving the way for the outcome to be challenged in the event of defeat, as did former US President Donald Trump, whom he deeply admired.
The president of Brazil did not participate in the demonstration, which also gathered thousands of people in Brasilia, but gave a speech via video, in which he said that he would not accept elections that were not “clean and democratic”.
He added that he would do “everything in his power” to force receipts to be printed in electronic voting.
On Thursday, Bolsonaro wrote on the social network Facebook that he was convinced that there had been fraud in the two previous presidential elections, and that he should have been elected in the first round, in 2018.
However, it did not provide any evidence, and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) maintains that the current system is completely transparent and has not presented any irregularities, noting, at the same time, that printing receipts can indeed lead to the emergence of manipulation.
Last weekend, tens of thousands demonstrated in Brazil to demand the impeachment of President Bolsonaro, who has been heavily criticized for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has already claimed more than 550,000 deaths in the country.
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