Uncertainty remains: Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will have to wait at least until Friday to find out if the electoral justice sentences him to eight years of ineligibility for having delivered misinformation on electronic voting before his defeat facing Lula.
Barely six months after leaving power, the far-right leader is being prosecuted by the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) in Brasilia for “abuse of political power and improper use of the means of communication” after having criticized, without proof, the reliability of electronic ballot boxes, a few months before the elections won at the end of 2022 by his leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Three judges have already voted for a conviction, and one has ruled against, each time giving detailed reasons for their choice.
Thursday’s session, the third in a week, was suspended until Friday morning, when the vote of the other three judges is expected. A new postponement remains possible, if a magistrate requests more time to examine the case.
The decision of the TSE will be taken by a majority, i.e. at least four out of seven votes. A conviction would be a thunderclap in Brazilian politics: it would deny Mr. Bolsonaro any access to public office, depriving him of revenge during the next presidential election in 2026.
At the heart of the case: a speech delivered in July 2022 at the presidential residence of Alvorada, and broadcast on public television. He then declared in front of diplomats that he wanted to “correct flaws” in electronic voting with the “participation of the armed forces”.
Discreet in recent months and absent at his trial, the 68-year-old ex-army captain has stepped up to the plate in recent days to defend his innocence.
“Regrettably, talking about a vaccine, talking about voting, talking about a ballot box (…) has become a crime,” he protested to the press on Thursday on his arrival in Rio de Janeiro.
“I am not a normal ex-president, I am an ex-president that the people already regret, and we have the potential to win the 2026 elections,” he added after stepping off a plane. from Brasília.
“I have committed no crime by meeting with ambassadors. To take away my political rights on the charge of abuse of political power is incomprehensible”, had launched Mr. Bolsonaro in the capital.
If convicted, the defense intends to appeal to the Supreme Court.
For Judge Raul Araujo, who voted against a conviction of the former head of state, his behavior “was not such as to justify an extreme measure of ineligibility”.
Conversely, his colleague Floriano de Azevedo Marques saw nothing “more serious” for a president-candidate than to “mobilize the apparatus of the Republic” to make people believe that “the Brazilian elections are not clean” .
According to the prosecution, he sought to “give the erroneous impression that the electoral process” in Brazil “is obscure” and subject to “manipulation”, with the “objective of discrediting” the result of the upcoming election.
Throughout his campaign, Mr. Bolsonaro had waved the risk of fraud, stoking the anger of his most radical supporters who, on January 8, just days after Lula took office, attacked the seats of the executive powers, legislative and judicial in Brasilia.
In an interview Thursday on local radio, President Lula once again damned his predecessor: “We had a citizen here who did not want to accept the election result. We had a citizen here who wanted to make a coup of State on January 8”.
If the question of post-Bolsonaro is already being asked in his camp and in the press, Bolsonarism is however firmly anchored. Jair Bolsonaro had lost with only 1.8% difference in the second round against Lula.
Right-wing and far-right parties are even stronger in parliament than they were under his tenure, posing a daunting challenge to the left-wing president, returning after two terms (2003-2010).
Whatever the decision of the TSE, Mr. Bolsonaro is not at the end of his legal ordeal. In addition to fifteen proceedings before the electoral court, the former leader is targeted by the Supreme Court in five cases, in particular for his alleged role as the inspiration for the attacks of January 8. He faces jail.
06/29/2023 19:23:40 – Brasilia (AFP) – © 2023 AFP