After the fiercest presidential campaign in Brazil’s history, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva managed to beat his rival Jair Bolsonaro on Octo-ber 30 with a narrow margin of only two million votes.
As soon as the South Ameri-can country’s electoral authority proclaimed Lula’s victory, seve-ral world leaders called him or congratulated him on social me-dia, including President Joe Biden.
But more than one day after the election, Bolsonaro had not yet publicly acknowledged his defeat. All over the nation, groups of his supporters have been blocking roads and asking for a military coup to correct what they saw as “a voting fraud”– although there is no evidence of voting irregularities.
The protests are a signal that the political polarization in the country – intensified since the 2018 presidential campaign, when Bolsonaro was elected – may not end with the conclusion of the electoral process. Although the church is aware of the great ob-stacles ahead, it has been calling for Brazilians to leave their di-fferences aside and work together from now on.
On October 31, the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) issued a statement in which it called the people to reconcile and seek “the common good.”
“The conclusion of the 2022 elections summons us, even more, to reconciliation, essential to the new cycle that is opening. Now, everyone, without distinction, needs to accompany, demand and supervise those who have achieved success at the polls. The exercise of citizenship does not end with the end of the electoral process,” the declaration said.