BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro invited foreign diplomats to a briefing at his residence on Monday to share his concerns about the security of the electoral process ahead of October elections in which he is trailing in a bid for a second term.
Bolsonaro has repeatedly questioned Brazil’s electronic voting system, arguing without proof that it is susceptible to fraud, which has raised fears he might refuse to concede defeat, as his ally Donald Trump did in the 2020 U.S. election.
On Sunday, Bolsonaro told reporters he had invited 50 diplomats and 40 confirmed they would attend the meeting on Monday afternoon in which he plans to provide information on alleged fraud in previous elections in Brazil.
Reuters confirmed that the envoys of the United States, the European Union, France, Spain and Portugal will attend. Neighbor Argentina, whose president is a leftist, was not invited.
The head of Brazil’s top election authority, the Superior Electoral Tribunal, Edson Fachin, was also invited but declined to attend, saying he could not meet with an electoral candidate.
Bolsonaro, a far-right nationalist who has said he modeled his presidency after Trump, has echoed the former U.S. leader’s baseless allegations of fraud in the 2020 U.S. election.
His attempts to discredit Brazil’s electoral system, which has been used since 1996 with no evidence of irregularities, has led his opponents to suspect Bolsonaro may refuse to accept a possible victory by leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is leading by double digits in opinion polls.
(Reporting by Anthony Boadle and Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
