A spokesperson for the US government reiterated that the country trusts the Brazilian electoral system, which he called a “model”, and said that US officials will follow the country’s October elections with great interest.
“We talked about it [eleições] privately with senior Brazilian officials, but we also make our vision public. And our view is that the elections have been successfully conducted by Brazil’s democratic institutions and electoral system, which are capable and tested over many years. They serve as a model for nations not just for the hemisphere, but beyond it as well,” Ned Price, a State Department spokesman, said in an interview Wednesday.
Price responded to a question about the meeting called by President Jair Bolsonaro with foreign ambassadors, on Monday (18), in which he told a series of lies about the Brazilian electoral system.
“As a partner, a democratic partner of Brazil, we will follow the October elections with great interest and with every expectation that they will be conducted in a free, fair and credible manner, with all relevant institutions carrying out their constitutional role,” added Price. .
The State Department heads US diplomacy and thus commands the country’s embassies abroad.
On Tuesday night (19), the US Embassy in Brasília said, via a statement, that the Brazilian elections are a model for the world and that Americans trust the strength of Brazil’s institutions.
“As we’ve stated before, elections in Brazil are for Brazilians to decide. The United States relies on the strength of Brazilian democratic institutions. The country has a strong track record of free and fair elections, with transparency and high levels of voter participation.” said the embassy.
Brazil and the United States have experienced a recent moment of rapprochement between Presidents Bolsonaro and Joe Biden. The two had their first conversation in early June, during the Summit of the Americas, after a year and a half of estrangement, in which there were no meetings between the two leaders.
Bolsonaro was a supporter of former President Donald Trump, Biden’s rival in the 2020 elections and who did not admit defeat in that election. The Brazilian president even reaffirmed the suspicions of electoral fraud, never proven, made by Trump at the time, and was slow to congratulate Biden on his victory.
At the June meeting, Bolsonaro told Biden that he expected elections to be “clean, reliable and auditable”. “I arrived [ao poder] for democracy and I am sure that when I leave the government it will also be in a democratic way”, he said at the time.
After the meeting, another State Department spokeswoman, Kristina Rosales, said Biden also told Bolsonaro that he trusts the Brazilian system.
“It’s a system that has worked, it’s safe and reliable. And that’s certainly what President Biden communicated yesterday. [a Bolsonaro]saying that we believe in it and hope that the result, whatever it may be, will be respected,” he continued.
“We do not tolerate and do not accept intervention in the electoral system anywhere.”
