BBrazil’s ex-president Jair Bolsonaro wants to challenge the Supreme Electoral Court’s ruling that banned him from all political office. Bolsonaro announced on Friday during a visit to the city of Belo Horizonte that he would appeal to the country’s Supreme Court. He described the recent decision of the Supreme Electoral Court to bar him from all political offices for eight years for abuse of office as a “stab in the back”.
The right-wing ex-head of state was combative. “I’m not dead, we will continue to work,” he told journalists. With the judgment of the electoral court, the country is “on the way to dictatorship,” he criticized. But the verdict “does not represent the end of the right in Brazil”.
Judgment for abuse of power
Five of the seven Supreme Electoral Court justices had found Bolsonaro guilty of abuse of power for making unsubstantiated allegations about security flaws in the electoral system before his election defeat last year. Two judges voted against convicting Bolsonaro. If the verdict stands up, he will not be allowed to run in the next presidential election in 2026.
The verdict against Bolsonaro refers to an appointment of the then president in July 2022, broadcast live on state television. For almost an hour, Bolsonaro used a PowerPoint presentation to make unsubstantiated claims about the supposed unreliability of the electronic voting machines – claims that he repeated during the election campaign. In October, he narrowly lost in a runoff to his left-wing challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro supporters then stormed the government district in Brasília on January 8, a few days after Lula’s inauguration. The five judges now accused Bolsonaro of being partly responsible for the “fatal consequences” for democracy. Bolsonaro’s immediate announcement that he would appeal his conviction came as no surprise. His lawyers had already announced in advance of the electoral court’s decision that they would appeal to the Supreme Court if necessary.
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