Blinken expects Brazil to show strong democratic institutions

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday he expected Brazil to demonstrate strong electoral institutions ahead of a weekend vote in which incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro has alleged fraud.

Blinken and Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, meeting in Washington, both said they did not want to interfere in the two-round election starting Sunday, in which polls show the far-right Bolsonaro trailing leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

“I can just say, generally speaking, that Brazil has very strong democratic institutions, including very strong electoral institutions, that they’ve demonstrated time and time again,” Blinken told a joint news conference.

“We expect that that will be the case in the upcoming elections this weekend,” he said.

Joly noted that she and Blinken will travel next week to a meeting of the Organization of American States in Peru and said “we look forward to engaging” with Brazilian counterparts.

“We will obviously be having strong discussions regarding the future of democracy within our hemisphere,” Joly said.

Bolsonaro, one of the closest international allies of Donald Trump, has for months spoken of the potential for fraud, raising speculation he will use the playbook of the former US president to question the legitimacy of the vote in the Western Hemisphere’s second most populous nation.

President Joe Biden has avoided public confrontation with Bolsonaro and met him in June at a regional summit in Los Angeles where they discussed climate change, a key priority for the US administration but on which Bolsonaro has shown skepticism.

But in what was seen as a quiet way to voice concerns, the administration last year dispatched CIA chief Bill Burns to speak to Bolsonaro.

Joly in her remarks said that Canada was “not immune” to threats to democracy seen in the United States, including the threat of “rampant disinformation on social media.”

“However, our resolve in the face of these challenges has never been stronger. We will remain resolute in our defense of democracy,” she said.