Everything happened as expected. The heavenly prayers of Jair Bolsonaro they did not move the Superior Electoral Court (TSE)which by five votes to two sentenced him to eight years of disqualification in the exercise of public office. Until 2030 he will not be able to participate in an election. The former president was found guilty of have abused their power by publicly questioning the transparency of the electronic ballot boxes for the 2022 elections before the diplomatic community. The definitive thrust was given by Judge Cármen Lúcia, who in 2021 had had a crucial impact so that the corruption trial against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was partially annulled. “Bolsonaro’s perverted conscience It has put democracy itself at risk,” he said this Friday during his plea. The majority in favor of the sanction was expanded later.
The former Army captain compared the opinion to the dagger that a madman embedded in his stomach during the 2018 electoral campaign that led him to the presidency. “Today I was stabbed in the back with ineligibility for abuse of political power. I have been condemned for my work.“. Despite his displeasure, he warned: “the game is not over. In politics, that phrase is not mine, nobody kills, nobody dies.” It is unknown if Bolsonaro will appeal the sentence before the TSE or before the Federal Supreme Court (STF).
The arguments of the magistrates had an unthinkable forcefulness a year ago, when the extreme right ruled. “What could be more serious than making fun of the democratic regime before foreign representatives and say that one of its pillars, free elections, is falsified and cunningly manipulated? A guy can be a flat earther, be part of the infinity edge club, but he cannot preach that as a public school teacher,” judge Floriano Marques told his colleagues. Marques did nothing more than endorse the concepts of the trial rapporteur, André Ramos Tavares. Bolsonaro, had pointed out last Tuesday, “made serious accusations without being supported by a minimum of evidence to support such conjectures, incorporating inventions, crude lies, fabricated facts, serious distortions into his speech. ” The former Army captain only found the leniency of Raul Araújo, one of the magistrates closest to his creed.The intervention of the then president before the diplomatic community, he said, “was not so great as to justify the extreme measure of ineligibility.”
Bolsonaro oscillated between pessimism and the request for compassion and the expectation of a last-minute miracle. On Thursday night, he prayed that “God touch the heart” of Alexandre de Moraes, the main authority of the TSE and its sworn enemy when he was president. “They said that he had interfered in the election results. If I had interfered, I should have won? Is meeting to talk about the electoral system a capital crime? “He also asked the court for a new” fair trial “. But knowing that his words would fall in a vacuum, he added, also defiantly: “the game is not over”. De Moraes did not come to his aid. “Our response confirms our faith in democracy and the rule of law in the face of demeaning populism, anti-democratic speeches and misinformation.”
A country split in two
The elections last October showed the extent to which society is divided around the figure of Bolsonaro. Lula won by less than two points. His rival could not tolerate him and he left the country, leaving the transition ceremony and part of his political capital in the air. Facing trial, about 37% of Brazilians expressed their solidarity with the former captain. That latent support is still a disturbing sign for the political scientist Fernando Limongi. “I don’t like Bolsonaro, I think he’s terrible, I can’t understand how someone votes for him. But he’s a political actor with a lot of support. Saying ‘let’s pretend that Bolsonaro doesn’t exist’ is not going to solve the problem.” In this sense, he remarked that the overcoming of the ultra-right must take place completely at the polls and not through court rulings. “If your political rights are going to be withdrawn, it has to be something very solid and well-founded so that it is not seen as revenge or a partisanship of the Judiciary. The Judiciary is not taking this care. It did not do so throughout the Lava Jato, which culminated in the impeachment (of Dilma Rousseff), nor in the imprisonment of Lula, and it is not doing it again. This ends up diminishing the legitimacy of this type of action.”
Bolsonarism’s options
The extreme right will try to promote an amnesty for its leader in Congress and, at the same time, capitalize on the disqualification. According to Bela Megale, columnist for the Rio de Janeiro newspaper or globe, the Liberal Party (PL), the group that promoted his candidacy last year, hopes to win the municipal elections next year. But for that, he needs Bolsonaro not to “throw in the towel” as happened when he lost the second electoral round. Valdemar Costa Neto, the main leader of the PL, believes that if the former president plunges back into depression Bolsonarism’s plans will be threatened. Unlike what happened after the electoral defeat, this time the most intransigent Bolsonaro is not in the streets and, at the same time, shows signs of confusion and pessimism for the moment.
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Meanwhile, Mónica Bergamo, columnist for the São Paulo newspaper Folha, assured that the “closest core” to the former president “is already discussing with campaign professionals the viability of names” that could replace him in the 2026 general elections, including the governors of the states of Paraná, Ratinho Jr, Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema, San Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas, and, in addition, Senator Tereza Cristina. In turn, Bolsonaro himself once again raised the possibility of have his wife Michele run on his behalf.
Sao Paulo forum
The final instances of the trial against Bolsonaro found Lula as host of the Sao Paulo Forum, an instance that usually meets periodically to the leftist forces in the region. There, the president lavished praise on the extinct Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. “It’s better to have a colleague of ours making mistakes that we can criticize than someone on the right who doesn’t even allow us the space to criticize,” she said. The Forum of San Pablo was precisely one of the great demons in the stories of Bolsonarism.