'We know the signs aren't good': Bolsonaro over possible political ban

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
22 Jun 2023 12:00

Brazil's Superior Electoral Tribunal is trying Bolsonaro on charges that he abused his office and misused state media to criticize the country's voting system.

Jair Bolsonaro, then-President of Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, on October 28, 2022 (AFP)

Far-right former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro risks losing his right to run the presidential race for eight years, as the country's electoral court begins Thursday delivering its ruling on charges coming from his allegations against Brazil's voting system.

The Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) is trying Bolsonaro on charges that he abused his office and misused state media when, in July 2022, he convened foreign diplomats for a meeting in which he insisted that Brazil's electronic voting machines were prone to large-scale fraud.

Bolsonaro spent nearly an hour making his case to the assembled ambassadors at the presidential palace briefing, which was broadcast live on public TV.

Prosecutors say the incident violated electoral law, given that it was held in the middle of Bolsonaro's campaign for Brazil's October 2022 elections, which he lost to leftist now-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Insiders say Bolsonaro will almost certainly be convicted, taking him out of the next presidential elections in 2026.

The 68-year-old ex-army captain reiterated on Wednesday that he had done nothing wrong.

"There was no criticism or attack on the electoral system" at the meeting, he told journalists. "I simply explained how elections work in Brazil."

However, the far-right ex-President appeared Sunday to be accepting his likely fate, saying, "We know the signs aren't good, but I'm keeping calm."

"We're not going to panic over the outcome... We want to stay alive, keep contributing to the country."

Bolsonaro is not expected to attend the audience, which opens at 9:00 am (1200 GMT) in Brasilia.

His press office told AFP that he will be following it from the southern state of Porto Alegre, where he will be holding political meetings.

Sources suggested that the TSE's seven judges are unlikely to finish reading their rulings Thursday. Further audiences have been scheduled for June 27 and 29 if necessary -- and the case could be extended even longer.

At the meeting with diplomats, Bolsonaro said that he wanted to "fix the flaws" in the electronic voting system that Brazil has used since 1996 to ensure the "transparency" of the elections.

"We still have time to resolve the problem, with the help of the armed forces," he said.

The accusations surged to the forefront again on January 8, when his supporters staged riots in the presidential palace, Supreme Court and Congress a week after Lula's inauguration, claiming that the elections had been fraudulent and demanding that the military intervene.

Bolsonaro, who spent three months in the US state of Florida after his election loss, has made few public appearances since returning to Brazil in March to serve as honorary president of his Liberal Party (PL).

He faces a raft of other legal woes, from five Supreme Court investigations that could potentially send him to jail -- including over the January 8 riots -- to police probes into allegations of a faked Covid-19 vaccination certificate and diamond jewelry snuck into Brazil from Saudi Arabia.