TSE minister gives Bolsonaro 3 days to explain draft of decree

Minister Benedito Gonçalves, Corregidor General of Electoral Justice, opened yesterday (16) a three-day period for former President Jair Bolsonaro to comment on a draft decree found in the house of his former Minister of Justice and Public Security, Anderson Torres. The text provided for a military intervention at the headquarters of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE). Gonçalves responded to the request of the PDT, and included the document among the evidence of an Electoral Judicial Investigation Action (Aije) that has Bolsonaro as a target. The process deals with the possible abuse of political power by the former president during the election campaign. The original motivation for the process was a meeting with ambassadors in which the former president presented untrue or incomplete information about the Brazilian electoral process, when he was still a representative. The PDT argued that the draft providing for intervention on the Electoral Justice is related to the case, as it reinforces the narrative that Bolsonaro intended to take power by force, if he lost the elections. The caption wrote that the draft decree is an “embryo conceived with the intention of a coup d’état”, being able to “densify the arguments that show the occurrence of abuse of political power tending to discredit this Electoral Justice and the electoral process, with with a view to altering the outcome of the election”. Benedito Gonçalves agreed with the arguments and said there was “an unequivocal correlation between the facts and new documents”. Such evidence adds to the narrative that Bolsonaro sought to keep alive in his base the idea of ​​fraud and intervention in the electoral result, evaluated the minister. The draft found at the home of former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres provides for the decree of a State of Defense, with the intervention of the Armed Forces on the headquarters of the TSE, in Brasília. According to the text, to be signed by Bolsonaro, an electoral board would be created to guarantee the fairness of the electoral process. This type of intervention by one Power over another is not provided for in the Constitution. In his defense, Torres said that the document was leaked “out of context”, and that the draft was in a pile of papers for disposal. The decree was found in a search and seizure at his residence, authorized by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF). Torres, who is also a former Secretary of Public Security for the Federal District, is also being held in a battalion of the Military Police of the Federal District by order of Moraes. He is investigated for alleged omission and connivance with the coup acts of January 8, when vandals invaded and destroyed the National Congress, the Planalto Palace and the headquarters of the Supreme Court itself.

Agência Brasil