SAO PAULO, Aug 28 (Reuters) – Brazilian senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the main opposition candidate in the country’s presidential election, said on Friday he will respect the result of the October vote, assuring he seeks to be elected under current electoral rules.
The right-wing lawmaker is the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year prison sentence for attempting to overturn his 2022 election defeat to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
• “I will respect the electoral process; I will respect the results,” the senator said in an interview with TV Globo’s Jornal Nacional, the most-watched newscast in Brazil.
• His father was convicted by a panel of Brazil’s Supreme Court last September for plotting a coup to remain in power after losing the 2022 vote.
• For years, Jair Bolsonaro had also fostered suspicions over the use of electronic voting machines in the country’s election.
• The senator said that, if elected, he intends to grant amnesty to those convicted for a January 2023 riot in Brasilia, when Bolsonaro supporters invaded and ransacked the presidential palace, Supreme Court and Congress.
• Flavio Bolsonaro also distanced himself from the U.S. government’s July decision to impose tariffs on Brazilian goods due to alleged unfair trade practices.
• The Trump administration had already imposed levies on Brazil last year for what Washington said was a “witch hunt” against Jair Bolsonaro during his trial. The tariffs were later removed.
(Reporting by Fernando Cardoso and Andre Romani, Editing by Iñigo Alexander)
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