Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro
BRASILIA, July 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been barred from office until 2030 for abuse of power, after he made unfounded claims about Brazil’s voting system ahead of last year’s election.
The seven judges on Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court in Brasilia voted by a majority to ban the former president for eight years. This means the right-wing populist will be unable to stand in the next presidential election. He could be eligible to run in the 2030 election, when he will be 75.
The justices say Bolsonaro abused his power when he summoned ambassadors to his residence last year and made baseless claims about the country’s voting machines. The meeting was just months before the election, which Bolsonaro narrowly lost.
Two justices sided with Bolsonaro, saying he had the right to freely express his opinions.
Bolsonaro says he will appeal the decision.
The former president still faces more than a dozen other cases, including one into his possible encouragement of attacks on the capital’s government center by a mob of his supporters on Jan. 8.
Prosecutors have linked Bolsonaro’s statements to his supporters invading the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court on Jan 8, a week after the inauguration of leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Lula had defeated Bolsonaro, 68, in elections last October.
Bolsonaro was not in court in Brasilia, traveling instead to Belo Horizonte in Brazil’s southeast, where he was scheduled to have lunch with members of his Liberal Party.
On Thursday, he insisted he was innocent, telling reporters: “Wanting to take away my political rights for abuse of political power is inexplicable.”
Nearly half the electorate voted for Bolsonaro in last October’s second round, but it was not enough for a win.
Bolsonaro’s lawyer Tarcisio Vieira has said he would appeal any guilty verdict to the Supreme Court.
Bolsonaro’s unsubstantiated talk of election fraud and the Jan 8 riots drew comparisons to his political role model, Donald Trump and his bid to hang onto power after losing the 2020 US presidential election.
Nicknamed the “Tropical Trump,” Bolsonaro’s presidency was controversial: at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic that claimed more than 700,000 lives in Brazil, he mocked face masks, social distancing and vaccines, warning the jab could “turn you into an alligator”.
He also faced an international outcry over the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, which surged on his watch.
Bolsonaro spent three months in the United States after his term came to an end, and has kept an uncharacteristically low profile since returning to Brazil in March to serve as honorary president of his Liberal Party.
He faces a raft of legal woes. Any one of five Supreme Court investigations could send him to jail — including over the Jan 8 attacks.
The police are also investigating claims of a fake COVID-19 vaccination certificate and of diamond jewelry snuck into the country from Saudi Arabia. — NNN-AGENCIES
