not to interfere in the elections

A source familiar with the matter confirmed to Reuters that Joe Biden’s government had raised concerns over Bolsonaro’s unsubstantiated allegations of fraud in Brazil’s fully electronic voting system and his threat not to accept poll results. next year’s elections. with the strategy of the former American president Donald trump.

The nature of the message Sullivan delivered was first reported in S. Paulo’s Folha newspaper on Saturday. He quoted a US official as saying that Sullivan pointed out the importance of not undermining confidence in the electoral process in Brazilespecially since no evidence of fraud has been presented in the previous elections.

Bolsonaro lashed out at electronic machines used in Brazil for weeks and lobbied for the printed ballots are adopted which can be counted manually if an election result is contested. But the president has provided no evidence of past fraud or current vulnerabilities.

The president violently attacked a judge of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) for publicly doubting his unfounded allegations and for stating that the system could be audited. Last week, the court, tired of Bolsonaro’s attacks, opened an investigation against him.

Critics fear that Bolsonaro, like Trump, sows doubt in case you lose next year’s election.

With his popularity on the decline amid the world’s second-highest death toll from Covid-19, opinion polls show Bolsonaro lags behind the left-wing former president. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, although the head of the Workers Party (PT) has not officially announced his candidacy.

Sullivan’s delegation expressed U.S. confidence in the ability of Brazilian institutions to hold free and fair elections in 2022, the U.S. embassy said in a statement, without giving details.

Sullivan also met with the Minister of Defense, Walter Braga Netto, and with the presidential security adviser, Augusto Heleno, both retired army generals and close collaborators of Bolsonaro.

Amid a worsening crisis, Bolsonaro has ignored calls – even from some of his own allies – to drop his dispute with the Supreme Court. On Friday, he called one of his judges a “son of a bitch” amid mounting tensions over his insistence that the machines are vulnerable to fraud.