Jair Bolsonaro’s challenge to Brazil’s election was rejected

When Jair Bolsonaro lost his bid for re-election on October 30th, he said nothing for 44 hours. Then, when he spoke, he did not explicitly reject the result, though he did not concede, either. Many saw this as a victory, of sorts, for democracy. Mr Bolsonaro, the right-wing populist president of Brazil, had spent years casting doubt on his country’s electoral system, which relies solely on electronic ballots. For months he had insinuated that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his rival, could only win if it was rigged. When Lula, as he is known, won by a mere 1.8 percentage points, many people expected Mr Bolsonaro to contest the result.