Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been disqualified for misinformation

Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to eight years in prison for “abuse of power” on Friday after he was ousted from office because of “false” information he spread in an electronic voting system before his defeat in the 2022 vote.

68 year old Mr. Bolsonaro denounced the “stab in the back” after the ruling, which deprives him of his presidential candidacy in 2026 and opens up a battle for his successor within the right and extreme right.

He thundered, ‘We are going on the path of dictatorship’ and immediately announced that he was going to appeal to the Supreme Court. “I am not dead, we will continue to work (…). This is not the end of the right in Brazil,” the far-right leader told reporters during a trip to Belo Horizonte in the southeast.

Friday’s hearing was decisive: it made it possible to reach a majority before the final decision of five votes against two of the seven magistrates of Brasilia’s High Electoral Court (TSE). thunder

The former head of state (2019-2022) was convicted of “abuse of political power and improper use of communication tools” after failing to appear for all four sessions of the trial, which began last week.

At issue: his unsubstantiated criticism of the unreliability of electronic ballots, months before the ballot was won by his leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The court warned before the election that “we will not accept criminal extremism” or “fraudulent information, disinformation with the aim of misleading the voters”, launched the head of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes.

Justice Minister Flavio Dino, one of Lula’s government heavyweights, did not hide his satisfaction after the verdict. “Democracy has overcome its toughest test in decades,” he said.

“Wonderful Story”

In July 2022 Mr. Bolsonaro’s speech, broadcast on public television and social networks, was at the center of the investigation. The former army captain said he wanted to correct the “flaws” in electronic voting with the “participation of the armed forces”.

This talk of the electoral system being vulnerable and prone to fraud, a nostalgia for the military dictatorship (1964-1985) hammered home during his campaign.

Days after Lula took office, on January 8, he drew the ire of his radical supporters who stormed and ransacked the seats of executive, legislative and judicial power in Brasilia.

The TSE judges who voted for the sentence were highly critical of the former president’s conduct.

Judge Andre Ramos Tavares thundered Thursday that his speech sounded like “an illusionary narrative harmful to democracy” and was not an isolated act, but “a choice made strategically over time for electoral purposes.”

Conversely, for his colleague Raúl Araujo, his behavior was “not such as to justify serious incompetence”.

The question of the leadership of the Bolsonaro camp is already being raised. No image is required as proof for now.

In addition, “Bolsonaro has a very strong power as a + king-maker + (king-maker). When he presents a candidate to the people, he swings the vote impressively,” AFP Leonardo Bass commented. Researcher at the Getlio Vargas Foundation.

And Bolsonarianism is more entrenched than ever. Right-wing and far-right parties are even stronger in parliament than they were under Jair Bolsonaro. In the second round against Lula, he narrowly lost twice (2003-2010), by a margin of 1.8%.

Mr. Bolsonaro has other legal challenges ahead. In addition to fifteen proceedings by the Electoral Tribunal, the former president is being targeted by the Supreme Court in five cases, specifically for his alleged role in inspiring the January 8 attacks. He faces prison.

In any event he can count on the support shown by his wife, Michelle, who is sometimes described as a potential political heir. In support of the biblical reference, she expressed her faith and trust in her “love” and her “Captain” on Instagram.

■