Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced on Friday to eight years of ineligibility for “abuse of power”, a shattering disqualification because of the “false” information he disseminated on the electronic voting system before his defeat in the 2022 ballot.
Jair Bolsonaro, 68, denounced a “stab in the back” after this judgment which deprives him of a presidential candidacy in 2026 and opens the battle for his succession within the right and the far right. .
Appeal to the Supreme Court
“We are on the way to dictatorship,” he thundered, immediately announcing that he would appeal to the Supreme Court. “I am not dead, we will continue to work (…). It’s not the end of the right in Brazil, ”said the far-right leader to the press during a trip to Belo Horizonte, in the southeast.
This Friday’s hearing was decisive: it made it possible to reach the majority, before a final result of five votes against two among the seven magistrates of the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) of Brasilia, to lead to a condemnation in the form of thunderclap.
“Abuse of political power”
Absent throughout the four sessions of this trial, which began last week, the former head of state (2019-2022) was convicted of “abuse of political power and improper use of the means of communication”. In question: his criticisms devoid of evidence against the alleged unreliability of electronic ballot boxes, a few months before the ballot won by his left rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The court had warned before the elections that it “would not admit criminal extremism” or “fraudulent information, disinformation, with the aim of misleading voters”, launched the president of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes.
One of the heavyweights of the Lula government, the Minister of Justice Flavio Dino, did not hide his satisfaction after the judgment. “Democracy has won its toughest test in decades,” he said.
“Wonderful Narrative”
A speech given by Jair Bolsonaro in July 2022 in front of diplomats at the presidential residence of Alvorada, and broadcast on public TV and social networks, was at the heart of the trial. The former army captain said he wanted to “correct flaws” in electronic voting with the “participation of the armed forces”.
This speech on a supposed vulnerability, conducive to fraud, of the electoral system, this nostalgic of the military dictatorship (1964-1985) will have hammered it during his campaign. He had stoked the anger of his most radical supporters who, on January 8, a few days after Lula’s inauguration, had stormed and ransacked the seats of the executive, legislative and judicial powers in Brasilia.
The TSE judges who voted for a conviction harshly criticized the conduct of the ex-president. His speech sounded like a “delusional narrative with harmful effects for democracy” and it was not an isolated act but a choice “strategically forged over time, at electoral purposes,” thundered Judge André Ramos Tavares on Thursday. Conversely, for his colleague Raul Araujo, his behavior “was not such as to justify an extreme measure of ineligibility”.
A “kingmaker”
The question of the leadership of the Bolsonaro camp already arises. No figure is required for the time being as recourse. In addition, “Bolsonaro has a very strong potential as a ‘king-maker’. When he indicates a candidate to the population, he manages to transfer the votes in an impressive way, ”commented for AFP Leonardo Paz, researcher at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.
And Bolsonarism is more entrenched than ever. Right-wing and far-right parties are even stronger in parliament than they were under Jair Bolsonaro. The latter also narrowly lost, with only 1.8% difference in the second round against Lula, back after two terms (2003-2010).
Jair Bolsonaro has other legal trials ahead of him. 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. He can in any case count on the displayed support of his wife Michelle, sometimes described as a possible political heiress. Biblical reference in support, she said on Instagram her confidence and her faith in the one who is her “love” and her “captain”.