Jair Bolsonaroformer president of Brazil, was politically disabled this Friday, a decision that implies that will not be able to stand for any position elective until the year 2030. The vote of Cármen Lúcia, a member of the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), was decisive in giving form a 5-2 majority in favor of disqualification in a court composed of seven members.
“I announce to your excellencies that I am accompanying the rapporteur minister in the request to apply the sanction of ineligibility to first respondentJair Messias Bolsonaro, and to declare the request inadmissible in relation to the second investigated, Walter Souza Braga Netto,” said Lúcia shortly after Brazilian noon, in a decision followed with great expectation by the media and Brazilian citizens.
Bolsonaro is accused of having committed abuse of political power and misuse of the media during a meeting with ambassadors held in July 2022 in Brasilia in which he repeatedly spoke of the danger of fraud in the voting system electronic. Braga Netto, acquitted, was his vice-presidential candidate in an election closely won by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in October 2022.
The former president will not be able to participate in the municipal elections of 2024 and 2028, nor in the general ones of 2026. Yes, he will be able to do so by 2030, if he wants to: as “Folha de Sao Paulo” points out, the punishment is valid for eight years from the last elections, in 2022, but, due to the difference of four days between the dates of the elections, it could be presented again in 2030.
The disqualification forces the Brazilian right to look for a strong candidate for the 2026 presidential elections, in which Lula does not rule out running for re-election, despite the fact that by then he will already be 81 years old.