Jair Bolsonaro and his ultra-right party, the Liberals, received a blow announced. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) not only rejected a request to invalidate part of the votes that gave victory to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, of the Workers’ Party (PT) on October 30. The highest authority of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes He also sentenced that formation, headed by Valdemar Costa Neto, to pay a fine of about four million euros for litigating “in bad faith” and with him “purpose of disturbing the Brazilian democratic regime itselfIn turn, De Moraes ordered that PL funds be blocked until he pays the sanction imposed.
The ruling party had assured in its presentation before the TSE that half of the electronic ballot boxes had problems that prevented the victory of the retired captain. For the main electoral authority, the arguments of the Bolsonaro party have been “absolutely falsebecause it is totally possible to trace the electronic ballot boxes of the old model”. For De Moraes, the request of this group has been “illegal” and lacking evidence. It has been, above all, “an ostensible threat to the democratic state of law”, carried out “with the objective of fomenting criminal and anti-democratic movements”.
Bolsonaro was defeated by almost two points difference 25 days ago. Throughout 2022 he spread a cloak of suspicion about the transparency of the electoral system, including in front of the diplomatic community. He only put those challenges on hold when he believed he could win the second inning. The result was not as expected. He never publicly acknowledged the winner of the contest. His few words, 36 hours after the elections, were ambiguous and he barely gave the slightest assurance that he would not hinder the transition. Since then, he called himself a silence that broke half with his adherence to the PL’s claim. Some media have ensured that the retired captain actively participated in the drafting of the party text.
defeat and rejection
For the moment, the PL has avoided responding to the TSE. He who is silent grants, the president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, must have thought, who assured that the answer given by De Moraes has been “pedagogical“. “With the coup plotters the law is applied, the evil is nipped in the bud. Democracy wins and Bolsonaro will remain in the trash of history,” he said. Senator-elect Flávio Dino, who is part of Lulla’s transition team, described in turn as “deplorable” the PL maneuver. “The action is also stupid: the election of all deputies, senators and governors would be annulled,” he added.
The Bolsonarismo bet was doomed to fail, in the opinion of political analysts and specialists in technical issues. “PL’s request was pathetic“said Merval Pereira, a columnist for The globe. At his discretion, that request was only made for “encourage the militants who camp, they block the roads, they ask for military intervention and the annulment of the elections.” In fact, there are still radical groups that have not given up their efforts to convince the military that they should take action on the matter. In this regard, Pereira added: ” This type of opposition that Bolsonaro is promoting is based on the non-recognition of the Government and is a serious institutional probleml, which will have to be resolved at the political level. It is not good to have a group of politicians who do not accept the new government. I think it’s difficult for him to maintain that attitude of denial within Congress.”
The intervention of the president of the TSE has sought to set a limit to an extreme right that, after the defeat of its candidate, did not stop stirring up the specter of fraud on social networks.