TSE closes first day of trial of action against Bolsonaro

The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) closed the first day of the trial of the lawsuit filed against former president Jair Bolsonaro after the meeting with ambassadors, held in July last year, at Palácio da Alvorada, to attack the electronic voting system. The case began in the morning, but was suspended after the arguments of the lawyers of the PDT, the party author of the action, of Bolsonaro’s defense and of the Electoral Public Ministry (MPE). The trial will resume on Tuesday (27), when the vote of the rapporteur, Minister Benedito Gonçalves, will be delivered. If he is convicted, Bolsonaro will be ineligible for eight years and will not be able to run in the next election. Session Most of the session was taken up by reading the report, a document that summarizes all the stages covered by the process. For two hours, Benedito Gonçalves recalled the progress of the action and said that 682 documents were analyzed. The minister pointed out that Bolsonaro had no basis in evidence to claim that the ballot boxes could be rigged. In addition, according to the rapporteur, the former president even made improper use of the public machine by broadcasting the meeting on TV Brasil, public broadcaster of Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC), and holding it at the Palácio da Alvorada. “These were behaviors that seriously undermined the normality and legitimacy of the election,” he said. The rapporteur said that the dissemination of untruths about the fairness of the election results may have driven the coup acts of January 8. Gonçalves cited other evidence against Bolsonaro, such as the seizure of the “draft of the coup” at the home of former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres. The draft provided for the decree of a State of Defense in the TSE to contest Lula’s victory in the 2022 elections. anti-democratic crusade that supporters of the investigated Jair Bolsonaro started after the result of the election”, he concluded. Then, the PDT and the Electoral Public Ministry (MPE) asked for Bolsonaro’s conviction and the decree of ineligibility. Defense During the session, Bolsonaro’s defense defended the rejection of the action against the former president. During support, lawyer Tarcísio Vieira de Carvalho said that the meeting took place before the election period, on July 18, when Bolsonaro was not an official candidate for the 2022 elections. “institutional counterpoint”, in addition to rejecting any “coup attempt” due to the inclusion of the “coup draft” in the process.

Agência Brasil