The liberal party (PL), the formation of Jair Bolsonaroyou will have to pay a fine of more than four million dollars for requesting the annulment of votes in the presidential elections last October, according to a decision of the Tribunal Superior Electoral (TSE).
According to the president of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes, the performance of Bolsonaro’s party, which submitted a request questioning the reliability of 61 percent of the electronic ballot boxes used during the elections, does not present any indication or evidence of fraud that justifies the reassessment of part of the votes registered in the ballot boxes. For this reason, the magistrate ordered the Liberal Party coalition to pay a fine of almost 23 million Brazilian reaisequivalent to 4.2 million dollars.
“The total bad faith of the plaintiff in his extravagant and illegal request, ostensibly offensive to the Democratic State of Law and carried out in an inconsequential manner with the purpose of encouraging criminal and anti-democratic movements was proven, both for the refusal to add the initial petition, as well as for the total absence of indications of irregularities and the existence of a totally fraudulent narrative of the facts,” the magistrate said in his decision.
The ruling also highlighted the lack of evidence and circumstances that justify the establishment of an extraordinary verification of some 280 thousand ballot boxes electronic devices used in the presidential ballotage. On the other hand, Moraes asked to investigate the responsibility of Valdemar da Costa Netopresident of the PL, and Carlos César Moretzsohn Rocha, president of the Legal Vote Institute. Given the order of the highest electoral authority, the PL announced that it had already activated its legal advisors to analyze the TSE’s decision.
Bolsonaro’s party’s action is based on a report by the Legal Vote Institute, a private consultancy commissioned by the Liberal Party, which points out that the president was the candidate who collected the most votes in the electronic ballot boxes manufactured from 2020, the newest, compared to the ballot boxes with an old serial number that, supposedly, they cannot be audited. The report notes that the 61 percent of the ballot boxes, almost 578,000 of themare of a less recent model that do not allow you to review the votes registered in it.
Nevertheless, the party did not include the first round of the elections in the audit, alleging that he found no problems, a reason that led Moraes to describe the organization’s request as strange, illegal and carried out in an inconsequential manner. Likewise, the president of the TSE clarified that “it is not reasonable” to affirm that the ballot boxes do not allow to carry out a tracking of the votes. For Moraes, this argument could only have been raised out of ignorance or bad faith.
The request of the Liberal Party
The Liberal Party of Jair Bolsonaro asked the Brazilian electoral justice system on Tuesday to annul the votes of some 280,000 ballot boxes used in the second round of October 30, alleging alleged errors that would have given Lula victory against the current president. “It is required that the respective votes to the electronic ballot boxes in which irreparable non-conformities of operation were verified and that the practical and legal consequences due in relation to the result of the second round of the elections be determined,” said the PL in the complaint signed by the lawyer Marcelo Bessa.
Bolsonaro’s party alleges a “malfunction” of five ballot box models, supposedly demonstrated in a technical report carried out by the Legal Voting Institute, hired by the formation itself, that “would jeopardize the transparency of the electoral process“.
“Inconsistencies do not allow verifying the voter’s vote. That It does not mean that there was fraud, but that there is no certainty that the polls are credible“, said Bessa at a press conference in Brasilia. With the annulment of the ballot box votes in question, Bolsonaro’s party maintains that the current president would obtain re-election with a 51.05 percent of the valid votes against Lula’s 48.95 percent.
Bolsonaro has remained virtually silent since he lost his re-election by a narrow margin of 2.1 million votes against Lula da Silva. The far-right leader did not explicitly recognize the result, but authorized the transition of power. The president cited “the indignation” and “the feeling of injustice” of his followers, who in some cases continue to demonstrate in front of military barracks calling for military intervention against the results of the polls.
ruse
The Workers’ Party (PT), which led the electoral coalition led by Lula, rejected the action attempted by the PL and considered it a “trick” that cannot prosper in the courts.
“Bolsonaro’s appeal before the TSE is a ruse that must be sanctioned as litigation in bad faith. Enough of malice, irresponsibility and insults to institutions and democracy,” said the president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, in a message posted on Twitter on Wednesday. “The election was decided with the vote and Brazil needs peace to build a better future,” added Hoffmann, one of the heads of the transition team appointed by Lula.
In the presidential runoff Lula Da Silva prevailed with 50.9 percent of the votes, compared to 49.1 percent obtained by Bolsonaro, in a process endorsed and recognized as transparent by all the national and international observer missions that participated.