Following his defeat in the general election on Sunday, Wanderlei Silva has once again been unable to win a seat in the Brazilian Congress.
The PRIDE and UFC veteran received 13,907 votes in the election while running as a candidate for the Progressive Party (PP), which is linked to Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. In order to represent his home state in Congress, he need more than 61,500 votes.
After failing to secure a seat in the 2018 elections, Silva will now attempt to run for congress in Brazil for a second time. The former UFC fighter then belonged to the Social Democratic Party.
Following in the footsteps of former UFC champion Tito Ortiz, who served as Mayor Pro-Tem of Huntington Beach, California, until he resigned from city council less than six months later, Silva is the most recent fighter to enter the political ring. BJ Penn, a former UFC champion who fell short of winning the Republican nomination for governor of Hawaii, is one of the others.
Later, on Instagram, Silva thanked his supporters and that he had "learned a lot" and "saw how much I still have to learn." Following a close election on Sunday, the former fighter has since continued to support Bolsonaro, who will face battle against longtime adversary Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a run-off.
Even though Lula had received more than 48% of the vote, giving him a five percent advantage over Bolsonaro, he fell short of the required threshold of more than 50% of valid votes to avoid a run-off.
Those who cast ballots now have a further four weeks to choose which of the two men will lead Brazil as its next president.
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