Bolsonaro challenges Brazilian election results following Lula's win

Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro accused his opponent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of "illegally spreading lies" to "terrorise the Brazilian people" as he challenged the outcome of Brazil's presidential runoff on Monday, announcing plans to seek an annulment of the election following the re-election of Lula.

The opposition candidate Bolsonaro mounted an immediate challenge against the electoral process, alleging that an unprecedented court ruling extended voting hours to favour the Workers' Party and disrupted the "balance" of the contest.

He accused his rivals of running a disinformation campaign, vowedto petition for Lula's disqualification, and claimed that federal police intercepted him outside his father's house to confiscate his passports and bar him from leaving the country.

However, despite Bolsonaro's push to annul the outcome, his own political group, the Liberal Party, issued a statement saying it had accepted the outcome of the vote.

On the streets of the capital Brasilia, local residents welcomed the election outcome.

Some members of the public expressed joy over the future of the working classand next generation, while others described the result as a vital victory for "Brazilian democracy" that averted a return to dictatorship.

Speaking to reporters in Maryland, US President Donald Trump weighed in on the contest, expressing scepticism over how the voting extension was managed.

"Well, I'm not running Brazil.

I'm running the USA.

And I just thought that the election was - I like Lula.

I get along with him very well.

I just think it had a very bad look, the election, the way it was tabulated.

You know, with the extension given, it was very strange." said Trump.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum welcomed Lula's victory which kept Latin America's largest economy under "leftist" leadership defying a wider regional shift towards conservative governments where Sheinbaum would have otherwise been the region's sole progressive leader among major powers.

Among the Brazilian diaspora in Massachusetts in the US, some of Lula's supporters welcomed the result.

However, some also cautioned that governing would prove difficult, given that Bolsonaro's supporters secured a majority of legislative seats during the first round of voting.