The Brazilian authorities arrested this Wednesday the former director of the Highway Police of former President Jair Bolsonaroin an operation investigating the interference of that force in the 2022 presidential ballot, a police source confirmed to AFP.
Silvinei Vasques, former head of the Highway Police (PRF), was arrested in the city of Florianópolis (Santa Catarina), southern Brazil, in a federal investigation that tries to determine if there was “use of public machinery to interfere in the electoral process “of the second roundin which the leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the presidency by narrowly defeating former president Bolsonaro (2019-2022).
On October 30, 2022, the day of the vote, the PRF then commanded by Vasques set up unusual roadblocks that caused traffic jams and delayed the arrival of voters at polling stations in northeastern Brazil, an electoral stronghold of Lula.
Bolsonaro lost the presidential elections with 49.10% against Lula’s 50.90%, a difference of two million votes.
In the northeast, the leftist president prevailed over Bolsonaro with almost 70% of the valid votes. Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) came to ask for the prison of Vasques that day, who had shared a post on social networks calling for voting for Bolsonaro, according to local press reports.
“According to the investigations, members of the Highway Police would have directed human and material resources to hinder the transit of voters on October 30, 2022,” the Federal Police (PF) said in a note.
“The crimes would have been planned since the beginning of October, while there was an ostensive patrol and directed to the northeast region of the country,” the force added.
Vasques has denied any electoral use of force.
In June, during an appearance before a parliamentary commission investigating the attacks by Bolsonaro militants on the headquarters of the three powers on January 8, in Brasilia, he attributed the largest number of checkpoints in the northeast to the fact that it is the region with the most accidents and electoral crimes.
The former head of the PR is being investigated for the crimes of prevarication, political violence and for preventing or hindering citizen suffrage.
The PF also carries out this Wednesday a total of 10 raids by order of the Federal Supreme Court, in three states and the Federal District of Brasilia.
AFP
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