Brazil Bars Bolsonaro From Office for Election-Fraud Claims
Brazil’s electoral court banned former President Jair Bolsonaro from seeking office until 2030 for spreading false claims about the nation’s voting system.Brazilian election officials on Friday blocked former President Jair Bolsonaro from seeking public office until 2030, removing a top contender from the next presidential contest and dealing a significant blow to the country’s far-right movement.
Brazil’s electoral court ruled that Mr. Bolsonaro had violated Brazil’s election laws when, less than three months ahead of last year’s vote, he called diplomats to the presidential palace and made baseless claims that the nation’s voting systems were likely to be rigged against him.
Five of the court's seven judges voted that Mr. Bolsonaro had abused his power as president when he convened the meeting with diplomats and broadcast it on state television.
“This response will confirm our faith in the democracy,” said Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice who leads the electoral court, as he cast his vote against Mr. Bolsonaro.
The decision is a sharp and swift rebuke of Mr. Bolsonaro and his effort to undermine Brazil’s elections. Just six months ago, Mr. Bolsonaro was president of one of the world’s largest democracies. Now his career as a politician is in jeopardy.
Under the ruling, Mr. Bolsonaro, 68, will next be able to run for president in 2030, when he is 75. The next presidential election is scheduled for 2026.
Mr. Bolsonaro said Friday that he was not surprised by the 5-to-2 decision because the court had always been against him. “Come on. We know that since I took office they said I was going to carry out a coup,” he told reporters (though he, too, had hinted at that possibility). “This is not democracy.”
His lawyers had argued that his speech to diplomats was an “act of government” aimed at raising legitimate concerns about election security.
Mr. Bolsonaro appeared to accept his fate, saying Friday that he would focus on campaigning for other right-wing candidates.
Yet he is still expected to appeal the ruling to Brazil’s Supreme Court, though that body acted aggressively to rein in his power during his presidency. He has harshly attacked the high court for years, calling some justices “terrorists” and accusing them of trying to sway the vote against him.
Even if an appeal is successful, Mr. Bolsonaro would face another 15 cases in the electoral court, including accusations that he improperly used public funds to influence the vote and that his campaign ran a coordinated misinformation campaign. Any of those cases could also block him from seeking the presidency.
He is also linked to several criminal investigations, involving whether he provoked his supporters to storm Brazil’s halls of power on Jan. 8 and whether he was involved in a scheme to falsify his vaccine records. (Mr. Bolsonaro has declined the Covid-19 vaccine.) A conviction in any criminal case would also render him ineligible for office, in addition to carrying possible prison time.
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Brazil Bars Bolsonaro From Office for Election-Fraud Claims
Brazil’s electoral court banned former President Jair Bolsonaro from seeking office until 2030 for spreading false claims about the nation’s voting system.
