Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during the graduation ceremony for the President-elect at the headquarters of the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) in Brasilia December 12, 2022. EVARISTO SA / AFP
The ceremonial authentication of the elected president by the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) before the official assumption of office on January 1 has so far been a formality in Brazil. Colored with boredom, she consecrated the election of the victor by approving the campaign accounts and putting an end to any legal challenge to the results.
This year, the celebration took on great prominence as supporters of incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro continue to camp outside military barracks demanding an intervention by the armed forces against the election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, says Lula, qu ‘they consider it illegal, almost a year and a half months after the second round. To avoid any risk of incursion by Bolsonarists, a large contingent of police guarded the Place des Trois-Pouvoirs in the heart of the capital on Monday 12 December. Despite these precautions, vehicles and buildings were set on fire in Brasilia in the evening without anyone being injured.
For this third term at the helm of Brazil, Lula could not hold back his tears when receiving this diploma, like when he was first elected in 2002. The emotions were all the stronger when he was greeted at the TSE by a “Hello President” Lula ! “: a salute exclaimed by the representatives of social movements present in the first rows and which he had heard every morning during the five hundred and eighty days of his imprisonment from his followers who had gathered in front of the prison where he was imprisoned between 2018 and 2019. Although briefly evoking this past, the President-elect and now certified wanted to show a new Brazil, free from Bolsonarianism, which he described as a “project of destruction, authoritarian, sowing hatred and lies and provoking unprecedented political violence” “ .
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A new headquarters
The founder of the Workers’ Party (PT) celebrated “the victory of a significant part of the Brazilian people who have reclaimed the right to live in democracy” and praised the courage of the judges of the TSE “in having tirelessly defended it”. The issue of the rule of law is addressed at length in the speech of the President of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes, whose speech will be even longer than that of the President-elect: “Democracy has won in the face of violence, misinformation and hatred from groups that, already identified, punished. I promise that all this will not happen again in the next elections, ”emphasized the one who has become the pet peeve of supporters of the ousted president in recent years.
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