Warehouses at Rio de Janeiro’s main food distribution center have been set ablaze in Brazil, sparking riots with reported food looting.
For many supporters of Bolsonaro, the victory of the left-wing election winner Lula is unsatisfactory.
Angry supporters of the opposition party have blocked 70 percent of Brazil’s federal highways, and many truck drivers are also taking part in the protests following Lula’s victory at the just concluded presidential election.
Since Sunday, supporters of President Bolsonaro have set up roadblocks across the country to draw attention to the “stolen election”.
The former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made a stunning comeback by beating far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential election.
It was a stunning comeback for a politician who could not run in the last presidential election in 2018 because he was in jail and banned from standing for office.
He had been found guilty of receiving a bribe from a Brazilian construction firm in return for contracts with Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras.
Lula spent 580 days in jail before Brazil’s Supreme Court overturned his conviction last year, allowing him to run in this year’s election.
After a divisive campaign which saw two bitter rivals on opposite sides of the political spectrum go head to head, Lula won 50.9% of the votes compared to Bolsonaro’s 49.1%.
Lula’s inauguration is scheduled for 1 January, 2023.
Bolsonaro said before the election that he expected manipulation if the result didn’t work out for him.
Many of his followers seem to think so too – and blocked large parts of the Brazilian road network with car tires, as well as truck and car blockades.
Bolsonaro has not yet commented on Sunday’s election result – it is questionable whether he will recognize it. It would be the first handover in the absence of the incumbent President.
“I hope that normalcy will prevail for the good of Brazil and the Brazilian people. If the president, if Jair Bolsonaro, doesn’t want to attend, okay,” Lula’s Labor Party (PT) leader and campaign manager Gleisi Hoffmann told Globo News.
