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The political career of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro is abruptly interrupted. This Friday, June 30, the majority of the judges of the Federal Electoral Tribunal (TSE) voted in favor of prohibiting his running for public office for the next eight years. The ruling came in the midst of the trial against the far-right leader for abuse of power, a case that dates back to the statements and actions of the former president with which he disqualified the electronic voting system in his country without evidence.
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Separated from the political scene for eight years. This is the ruling against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, one of the biggest figures of the extreme right in Latin America.
Five of the seven judges of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) voted in favor of vetoing Bolsonaro for abuse of power and misuse of the media after concluding that the political leader cast unfounded doubts about his country’s electronic voting system.
An opinion that ends the former president’s intentions to run in the 2026 presidential elections.
“This decision will end Bolsonaro’s chances of being president again and he knows it (…) After this, he will try to stay out of jail, he will choose some of his allies to maintain his political capital, but it is very unlikely that come back to the Presidency”, said the professor of political sciences at the Insper University of Sao Paulo, Carlos Melo.
Bolsonaro will be able to appeal to the Supreme Court. However, he is also facing other cases, including criminal investigations.
The case that will keep Bolsonaro out of Brazilian politics
Bolsonaro is accused of abuse of power, after, according to the authorities, he created a national movement to annul the result of the 2022 presidential elections, in which he lost the reelection against the current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
His actions triggered, the investigation highlights, the attack by hundreds of followers of the extreme right to the three seats of power in Brazil, in the capital: Congress, the Presidency and the Supreme Court.
The far-right former president is accused of excessive use of his authority by using government communication channels to promote his campaign and casting unfounded doubts on the country’s electronic voting system.
Although his criticisms were frequent last year in the face of the elections, the case against him highlights a meeting called by Bolsonaro on July 18, 2022, at the presidential palace. There, before fifty ambassadors, the political leader disqualified the transparency of the electoral system and the very democracy of his nation without proof. The act was broadcast on public television under the order of the then head of state.
“Bolsonaro abused the powers of his office by calling the meeting: check. He used government personnel and buildings for electoral purposes and mixed the interests of the country with those of his campaign,” said Márlon Reis, an electoral law expert who helped draft the ineligibility provisions.
“It is not the end of the right in Brazil”
After learning the position of the judges this Friday, the former head of state pointed out that it is “a stab in the back.”
But he also indicated that “it is not the end of right-wing politics in Brazil (…) We will continue working.”
The former president was already waiting for his disqualification after his political future was left hanging by a thread on Thursday, since three of the seven magistrates voted in favor of disqualifying him, only one ruled to acquit him and the remaining judges would cast their vote this Friday when they finally the majority ruled against him.
“This is an injustice against me, my God in heaven! Show me something concrete that you have done against democracy (…) Perhaps my crime was doing the right thing for four years,” Bolsonaro said on the eve of learning of the ruling.
The former president has repeatedly denied accusations of wrongdoing and attributed the accusations to a “witch hunt” aimed at allowing Brazil’s left to fight unopposed in the 2026 elections, which he hoped to run for.
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s hopes of regaining the Presidency in 2026 may be all but dead. However, that does not mean that there will not be a Bolsonaro in office three years from now.
On Thursday, shortly after landing in Rio de Janeiro, where he was greeted with cries of “criminal” and “coup plotter”, the former president supported a possible participation of his wife Michelle in the 2026 elections.
“Of course I would support Michelle’s candidacy,” he stressed.
With Reuters and AP
