Dispute centers on campaign spending
PL leader Valdemar Costa Neto said the party recognized the result announced by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), while maintaining that the concerns raised required clarification. The party did not endorse Bolsonaro's initial call to annul the whole election.
The PL questioned government spending shortly before Sunday's vote, arguing that it cast doubt on the fairness of the contest. Lula had moved up the payment of social benefits before the election.
Official results gave the incumbent leftist 51.8% of the runoff vote and Bolsonaro 48.2%. The result would allow Lula to begin a fourth term in January.
Bolsonaro seeks to block another term
After the result was announced Sunday, Bolsonaro said he would reject his defeat and seek the election's annulment. By Monday, he had changed his approach: He said he would ask the electoral court to prevent Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin from being sworn in for another term, alleging misuse of economic resources during the campaign.
In a video, Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, accused Lula of an unprecedented abuse of political and economic power that distorted the campaign. He also alleged that the opposing camp had spread false information on a large scale.
Bolsonaro did not explicitly concede in the video. He pledged to mobilize opposition to Lula and make parliament a stronghold against the leftist government. Right-wing parties made substantial gains in the parliamentary election three weeks earlier and represent the strongest force in the Chamber of Deputies.
PL lawmaker Nikolas Ferreira urged supporters not to protest the result, even as he questioned the legitimacy of the election process. In a video appeal, he said their anger and outrage were understandable but called for restraint. Ferreira, an influential figure in the Bolsonaro camp, frequently appeared alongside the candidate during the campaign.
Separate challenges after the 2022 election
The current dispute is separate from the challenges that followed Brazil's 2022 election. On November 10, 2022, the Brazilian Ministry of Defence released the military's election-audit report. It identified possible vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines but found no signs of voter fraud.
On November 23, 2022, TSE President Alexandre de Moraes denied the PL's request to invalidate runoff votes cast on roughly 280,000 older electronic voting machines. He imposed a R$22.9 million fine on the coalition for bad-faith litigation and halted party-fund transfers until payment.
Following the October 2022 runoff, Lula was sworn in as president on January 1, 2023. A week later, on January 8, pro-Bolsonaro protesters stormed the National Congress, the Presidential Palace and the Supreme Federal Court in a failed attempt to overthrow the newly elected government.
The PL paid the R$22.9 million fine in February 2023, after which the TSE lifted the block on the party's accounts.
