Live: Bolsonaro supporters block Brazil highways over electoral defeat

Issued on: 31/10/2022 – 16:20

• Brazil’s election authority called the race for former leftist leader and former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday. Lula won 50.9 percent of the vote to outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro’s 49.1 percent, with a margin of 2 million votes.

• About 124 million Brazilians voted in the 2022 presidential election, or nearly 80 percent of the more than 156 million eligible.

• As of Monday, Bolsonaro had yet to concede defeat.

3:57pm: Brazil’s Lula to send reps to COP27 climate summit after election win

Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will send representatives to next month’s COP27 United Nations climate summit, allied environmentalist Marina Silva said on Monday, a day after the left-wing former president won a third term.

The congresswoman-elect told Reuters in an interview that Lula would “definitely send broad representation” even if it was not an official delegation ahead of his Jan. 1 inauguration.

3:36pm: Stocks rise in volatile session after Lula’s win

Brazil’s real reversed course to rally 1.6 percent on Monday and stocks followed a similar pattern as leftist candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a presidential election run-off, while a strong dollar weighed on most other emerging market currencies. 

The real, among the best performing emerging market currencies this year, recouped early losses of up to 2 percent. The currency is on course to mark a near 4 percent gain in October. Brazil’s benchmark stocks index rose 1.3 percent, with mining giant Vale and Itau Unibanco up around 3 percent each. Oil major and privatisation candidate Petrobras however, fell 3.7 percent.

3:25pm Nordic banking powerhouse may lift ban on Brazil bonds after Lula win

The asset management arm of Nordea, one of the biggest banks in the Nordics, on Monday said it may lift a ban on buying Brazilian government bonds previously established over environmental concerns, after Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday.

Nordea Asset Management’s (NAM) head of responsible investing, Eric Christian Pedersen, told Reuters in a statement that the firm is considering whether to lift a prohibition on new government debt purchases instituted in 2019 over concerns about fires in the Amazon rainforest.

NAM has about €237 billion of assets under management, according to its website.

2:45pm: Trucks, protesters block Brazil highways after Bolsonaro rout

Truckers and other protesters on Monday blocked some highways in Brazil in an apparent protest over the electoral defeat of far-right Bolsonaro to leftist Lula da Silva, authorities said.

Burning tires, as well as vehicles such as trucks, cars and vans were blocking several points in the central-western agricultural state of Mato Grosso, which largely supports Bolsonaro, reported the company which manages the highway in the state.

It was not immediately clear if the protests were being organised by a particular group. Brazil has a powerful, loosely organised truckers’ movement that is heavily pro-Bolsonaro.

Local media reported road blockages in at least five other states, including Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and Reuters)