[1/4]Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro gestures as he greets supporters at Salgado Filho International Airport, on the day the Electoral Justice begins the trial to determine his political rights, as he arrives in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, on June 22, 2023. REUTERS/Diego Vara/Archive…
BRASILIA, June 27 (Reuters) – Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was staring into the political abyss on Tuesday when a justice of the federal electoral court (TSE) voted to ban him from office until 2030 for anti-democratic abuse of power during difficult elections last year. .
The vote by Benedito Goncalves, the lead judge in the case against Bolsonaro, does not mean a full conviction, but it may set the tone for the judge’s subsequent votes.
The picture is looking increasingly bleak for Bolsonaro, a career politician who was until recently the most powerful man in Brazil. The far-right nationalist narrowly lost Brazil’s most complicated election in a generation to his leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and now faces an institutional trial for forging an electoral denial movement in the whole country
Bolsonaro is accused of abusing his power when he summoned ambassadors last year and made unsubstantiated claims about the security of Brazil’s electronic voting system, one of a series of attacks that critics say were aimed at diminish voters’ faith in voting.
Goncalves said Bolsonaro was guilty of abuse of power and misuse of the media. “Bolsonaro took advantage of the meeting with the ambassadors to spread doubts, to incite conspiracy theories,” Goncalves said during his vote.
After his vote, the session was adjourned until Thursday.
Bolsonaro had appeared increasingly optimistic about his hopes for political survival before the vote.
“Everyone seems to be saying that it is likely that I will be removed from office,” Bolsonaro told the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper in an interview published this week. “I will not despair. What can I do?”
However, political ineligibility may not be the end of Bolsonaro’s problems. The 68-year-old also faces multiple criminal investigations that could still put him behind bars.
Many of his former allies have turned their backs on him, pinning their hopes on new rightists such as São Paulo Governor Tarcisio Freitas and Minas Gerais Governor Romeu Zema.
Bolsonaro’s best hope for relevancy may lie in his family, including his lawmaker wife and children, who may also harbor their own presidential ambitions. He told Folha de S. Paulo that his wife Michelle could be a presidential candidate in 2026, but noted that she had no political experience.
Additional reporting by Carolina Pulice; Editing by Richard Chang and Stephen Coates
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