Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) judge and the rapporteur of the action against Jair Bolsonaro voted to exclude the former Brazilian president for the next eight years.
Benedito Gonçalves, in a speech with strong words, believed that Jair Bolsonaro committed abuses of power and politics and abuse of the media. The judge acquitted Walter Braga Netto, Bolsonaro’s vice presidential candidate.
The trial will end at 9 a.m. on Thursday (1 p.m. in Lisbon)
“It is not possible to turn a blind eye to the anti-democratic effects of violent speeches and lies that question the credibility of electoral justice,” he stressed.
Jair Bolsonaro, the judge said, sought “international discredit” and uttered “heinous lies” about Brazil’s election process even after losing the October election to Lula da Silva “to keep his political base mobilized.”
On the second day of the trial, at the TSE, in Brasília, Benedito Gonçalves believed that Bolsonaro abused political power and abused the media at a meeting organized by the then Brazilian head of state in the middle of the election campaign. with foreign ambassadors in the country. Palácio da Alvorada, official home of the president in Brasilia, on July 18, 2022.
During this meeting, which was broadcast on state television TV Brasil and on social media, the then president launched several baseless attacks on the reliability of the electoral process and more specifically on the electronic ballot boxes used and validated by various international bodies since 1996, and the same ones that elected him to several terms as federal deputy and president.
Bolsonaro said in front of about 40 ambassadors from different countries, including the Portuguese, without substantiating that the system could be the target of fraud and would not be verifiable, insinuating that it was a company that counted the votes and not the TSE and also said , without providing any evidence that a ‘hacker’ had accessed “everything within the TSE”.
“The meeting had an electoral purpose, with the aim of influencing the electorate and national and international public opinion using the public structure and the prerogatives of the office of President of the Republic,” the Judge-Rapporteur stressed.
The judge rejected the request of Bolsonaro’s defense to remove from the trial the so-called “coup draft”, a decree that allegedly aims to overturn the results of the election by promoting an intervention in the suffrage tribunal that could be passed in the house was found of former Justice Minister Anderson Torres during an operation for alleged conspiracy during attacks by Bolsonaro supporters against the three powers on the Esplanada dos Ministérios, on January 8 this year.
This decree is “coup d’état in essence”, according to the judge.
The trial ends on Thursday with the votes of judges Raul Araújo, Floriano de Azevedo Marques, André Ramos Tavares, Cármen Lúcia, Nunes Marques and finally Alexandre de Moraes, president of the TSE.
Raul Araújo, the first judge to vote on Thursday, is Bolsonaro’s “hope”.
“Minister Raul is known as a jurist who is very committed to the law. Despite being in an electoral political court, there is an opportunity to request a review. This is good because it helps us get the facts straight clear,” said Bolsonaro, on Friday during a local radio interview.
To be ineligible, Bolsonaro must have been convicted by at least four judges. If any of the seven judges request a review of the case, they must return the files to resume the trial within 30 days, to resume for another 30 days from the date of the hearing in which the request for review was made . With the closure of the higher courts in July, the deadline will be extended to 90 days.
Defense attorney Tarcísio Vieira de Carvalho Neto has already announced that if Bolsonaro loses the case and is declared inadmissible, he will appeal to the Supreme Federal Court (STF).
The former president has more than a dozen lawsuits pending with the TSE, including verbal attacks on the electoral system and using the public machine for his own benefit, which could see him lose his political rights.
Bolsonaro, who lost the right to immunity after being defeated in October’s elections, is still under at least five federal Supreme Court investigations that could lead to his arrest.
Source: DN
