BRASÍLIA, July 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Brazil’s ex-president Jair Bolsonaro was questioned by police on Wednesday and denied he had been part of any plan to prevent his successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva taking the reins.
After spending about three hours at the Federal Police offices in the capital Brasilia, Bolsonaro told reporters “there was no plan” to impede Lula.
A former Bolsonaro ally, senator Marcos do Val, told reporters in February he had attended a meeting with the then-president where a plan was hatched to prevent Lula from taking power after winning last year’s election.
The alleged plan, according to do Val, entailed getting the president of the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Alexandre de Moraes, to say something compromising, record and release it.
Bolsonaro supporters accuse de Moraes of interfering in the election campaign in Lula’s favor.
Do Val initially claimed Bolsonaro was the one who presented the plan, but later changed this version of events to Bolsonaro remaining silent during that meeting.
The former president said Wednesday, “nothing was dealt with. There was no plan discussed at that meeting of around 20 minutes.”
Fabio Wajngarten, a lawyer for Bolsonaro, said no conspiracy or coup was discussed at the meeting and de Moraes’ name did not come up.
This was the fourth time this year that Bolsonaro has had to make statements to police investigating an array of alleged wrongdoing, including claims of a fake Covid-19 vaccine certificate and of diamond jewelry snuck into the country from Saudi Arabia.
In one such interview, he also denied involvement in the violent invasion of the presidential palace, congress and supreme court in January by supporters angry about his electoral defeat.
Bolsonaro said Wednesday all those probes are designed to undermine him politically.
“I did not steal anything. I did not conspire. The goal of this is to humiliate, to coerce public opinion constantly, and wear me down,” he said.
Two weeks ago, the TSE barred Bolsonaro from holding public office for eight years because of baseless attacks he made against the country’s voting system.
The ruling rendered the 68-year-old ineligible to stand in the next presidential election in 2026. — NNN-AGENCIES
