The Missão candidate said he would not campaign ahead of the Oct. 25 vote. Preliminary figures put Flávio Bolsonaro ahead of Lula da Silva.
Renan Santos, the Missão party’s presidential candidate, said he would not endorse or campaign for either contender in Brazil’s Oct. 25 runoff. After the first round, he told voters to make their own choice and said he believed Senator Flávio Bolsonaro had already won.
With 99.74% of ballots counted, Flávio Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party (PL) had 47.09% and incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party (PT) had 45.09%, according to figures cited by CNN Brasil. The results were still preliminary when the article was published.
Santos sharply criticized the outcome. He argued that a Bolsonaro victory would align Brazil with Donald Trump’s political camp and weaken the prospects for investigations into alleged scandals involving the INSS social security agency and Banco Master. He also speculated that, if Bolsonaro won, an agreement might protect people implicated in the cases and lead to the release of former president Jair Bolsonaro. These were Santos’s claims and predictions, not established findings.
Santos said Flávio might present himself as a “peacemaker” and predicted little would change in the country. He also criticized the election of Nikolas Ferreira and Lucas Pavanato, who became record vote-getters in races for the lower house. Despite his defeat, Santos said he would remain in politics and continue building his party.