“We are on the way to dictatorship,” responded the former Brazilian head of state, who denounced “a stab in the back”.
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Published on 06/30/2023 22:45
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Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro addresses the media upon his arrival at the airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 29, 2023. (MAURO PIMENTEL / AFP)
Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced on Friday, June 30, to eight years of eligibility ban for “abuse of power,” a staggering disfellowship for the “false” information he circulated on the e-voting system before his defeat in the 2022 vote. The year-old former Brazilian president denounced a “pride in the back” following that ruling that is barring him from a presidential candidacy in 2026 and opening the battle for his successor within the right and the extreme right.
“We are on the way to dictatorship,” he thundered, immediately announcing that he would appeal to the Supreme Court. “I’m not dead, we will continue to work (…). It’s not the end of the right in Brazil,” the far-right leader told the press during a trip to Belo Horizonte in the southeast.
“Improper use of the means of communication”
Friday’s hearing was crucial. This managed to secure a majority before a final score of five votes to two among the seven judges of Brasilia’s Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) resulted in a thunderclap conviction. The former head of state (2019-2022), who was absent during the four sessions of this process that began last week, was convicted of “abusing political power and misusing the means of communication”.
In question: his criticism of the alleged unreliability of electronic ballot boxes, which was unfounded a few months before his left-wing rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the election. The court warned ahead of the elections that it would “not admit to criminal extremism” or “fraudulent information and disinformation intended to mislead voters,” said TSE President Alexandre de Moraes.
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