Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) on Wednesday rejected a request by incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, who is seeking re-election on Sunday, for an investigation into alleged irregularities in the broadcast of electoral propaganda on the radio.
The president of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes, rejected the request for not being accompanied by evidence, which could constitute an “electoral crime” and an attempt to “destabilize the second round”, four days before it.
“This is an expressly inept request”
The campaign team of the far-right president denounced on Monday an “electoral fraud” supposedly orchestrated to favor the leftist candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his opponent.
“Innumerable radio stations do not adequately transmit” the electoral propaganda determined by the justice, the Bolsonaro team had tried to argue to justify this accusation.
Allies of the outgoing head of state have claimed to have been harmed by the lack of dissemination of some 154,000 electoral announcements, including a large part in the northeast of the country, Lula’s stronghold.
“This is an expressly inappropriate request, since the days, times and radio channels in which the electoral norm would have been violated have not even been identified,” replied Alexandre de Moraes, who is also a judge of the Federal Supreme Court (STF). ), in his decision.
The magistrate clarified that the request presented by Jair Bolsonaro’s campaign team had been made by a company “that is not specialized in audits.”
Source: BFM TV
