Brazil military finds no fraud in election, but refuses to rule it out
April 29, 2016
BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT JOÃO DANTAS, left, and his vice president Hamilton Mourão listen as Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff speaks at the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, Monday, Sept. 4, 2012. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Brazil’s electoral commission said on Tuesday that it had found no evidence of electoral fraud after a year of investigations into allegations of ballot stuffing and other irregularities in this year’s presidential election, which Rousseff narrowly lost to her leftist rival, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
“We conducted a full investigation…in the time we had, we found no evidence of any electoral fraud,” Marcelo Ramos, chief of the electoral commission, said at a news conference.
The commission is expected to release a report on its findings by the end of this week.
But Ramos, who earlier on Tuesday said the commission had uncovered no irregularities, suggested that there could still be other irregularities.
“There could be,” Ramos said. “And therefore the electoral commission will present the findings to the prosecutor’s office and the appropriate police authorities and there is a very important procedure that we will follow.”
The electoral commission said the report would take up to a month to complete.
But the country’s top election official, Anibal Capriles, told Reuters that there was no reason to wait.
“The electoral commission has already submitted its report to the prosecutor’s office, which in itself is a positive sign,” he said.
Capriles said he would like to have the results of the vote, which took place on April 9 and April 28, by June 1.
The allegations of electoral fraud have dogged Rousseff throughout her presidency. She has been dogged by allegations of spending on parliamentary elections that she says were rigged