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Bolsonaro Running Mate Says Candidate Will Accept Outcome of Brazil Vote


People protest against leading presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, long known for offensive comments about gays, women and black people, at Cinelandia Square in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 29, 2018.
People protest against leading presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, long known for offensive comments about gays, women and black people, at Cinelandia Square in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sept. 29, 2018.

Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro has changed his mind and will accept the result of this month's election even if the leftist Workers
Party (PT) wins, his running mate said on Monday.

Bolsonaro, a former army officer who has expressed admiration for Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship, said on Friday that he would not accept defeat. Opinion polls show him winning the most votes in Sunday's first round but losing to the PT's Fernando Haddad in a probable run-off three weeks later.

"He has changed that view. If he is defeated, he loses," retired General Hamilton Mourão told reporters at Brasilia airport.

Bolsonaro has previously accused the PT of planning to rig the elections, which some Brazilians have interpreted as a warning intended to encourage a military coup if he did not win.

Mourão said Brazil's military would "logically" accept a PT victory, even if that meant, in his view, a return to incompetent government and corruption.

"The armed forces are sitting quiet, following their commanders," the general said.

Mourão was relieved of his military command in 2015 and given a staff job after he publicly criticized then PT President Dilma Rousseff. Last year, he suggested that the military should take over if Brasilia's courts failed to stop political corruption.

Brazil's most polarized election since the return to civilian government in 1985 is heading for a close race between the right and the left, according to the polls.

If neither Bolsonaro nor Haddad win a majority of the vote in the first round, a run-off between the two top candidates will be held on October 28. Major polling firms Ibope and Datafolha have found Haddad would likely win.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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