Any Bolsonaro attempt to undermine Brazil election should be met with sanctions -ex U.S. diplomat

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro reacts during a ceremony in Brasilia, Brazil April 28, 2022. REUTERS/Andressa Anholete

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Washington should make it clear to the "messianic" Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro that any effort to undermine his country's elections would trigger multilateral sanctions, a newly retired U.S. State Department official wrote on Saturday.

The opinion piece in the O Globo newspaper from Scott Hamilton, the U.S. consul in Rio de Janeiro from 2018 to 2021 who retired from the State Department this week, is likely to irk Bolsonaro. The far-right populist has made baseless allegations of Brazilian electoral fraud, which Hamilton called part of a plan to reject any defeat in the October election.