Bolsonaro may also be barred from the 2030 election – 07/03/2023 – Politics

The TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União) may extend the ineligibility of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to the 2030 elections and, perhaps, even to the 2032 elections.

This ineligibility can be taken even further with possible criminal convictions of the former president in cases reported by Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF (Federal Supreme Court).

Within the scope of the court of accounts, a process should be opened based on the decision of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) which considered that there was abuse of political power and misuse of the media in the meeting with ambassadors in which Bolsonaro discredited the electronic voting machines, occurred in July 2022.

The TSE is still preparing the dispatch that will be sent to the TCU. Process information will also be sent to support criminal investigations that are being processed by the STF.

The Clean Record Law determines that public managers who have their accounts disapproved for irregularities that constitute a malicious act of impropriety are prevented from contesting elections for the next eight years after the decision.

As the Court of Auditors has yet to receive the decision from the TSE and initiate an internal process to assess the issue, the action should take time to reach an outcome at the TCU, only then can the period of ineligibility begin to count.

However, in representation, the deputy attorney general of the Public Prosecutor’s Office with the TCU, Lucas Rocha Furtado, already requests an investigation of damage to public coffers in the context of the decision taken by the TSE.

He forwarded the request for investigation of “damage to the treasury resulting from the abuse of political power and the misuse of the means of communication, especially through public channels” to the president of the TCU, Bruno Dantas.

Behind the scenes of superior courts and TCU itself, it is seen as unlikely that the court will not convict the former president.

The court will analyze the issue because the rapporteur of the action against Bolsonaro at the TSE, Minister Benedito Gonçalves, in addition to voting for the conviction of the former representative, also determined that the case be sent to the Court of Auditors in order to assess the misuse of buildings. audiences at the meeting with foreign representatives.

The understanding in reserved conversations in courts in Brasilia is that the highest electoral court in the country has already decided that it was an illegal pre-campaign act and that it will be difficult for the TCU not to make a decision in the same sense and determine the return of the public resources used in the realization of the event.

From a legal point of view, a way out for Bolsonaro to avoid having the ineligibility extended would be to anticipate and return the money used in advance in order to gain a consistent legal argument.

In the TSE decision, Bolsonaro’s ineligibility is valid for eight years from October 2, 2022, which should allow him to run in the 2030 elections. of the action, the so-called final and unappealable decision.

There is also the possibility that he will also be punished in the criminal sphere in the coming months.

When voting for the TSE trial, Minister Alexandre de Moraes, who is also a member of the Supreme Court, cited digital militias during his demonstration and made references to them at least twice.

The digital militias inquiry brings together all of Bolsonaro’s coup attempts against institutions and his role in spreading fake news and misinformation throughout his mandate.

By indicating the list of cases, Moraes indicates that he will point to Bolsonaro as one of the masterminds of the attacks, in addition to relating January 8 as one of the events linked to the criminal organization investigated in that inquiry.

In addition to applying the sentence to Bolsonaro, the TSE sent the decision to the PGR (Attorney General of the Republic) and to Moraes, as rapporteur of the investigations that investigate the alleged leak of confidential information of an alleged attack on the TSE system and on the call for anti-democratic acts.

It also sent to Minister Luiz Fux, rapporteur of a process in which federal deputies claim that Bolsonaro committed a crime against the democratic rule of law, crimes of responsibility and electoral responsibility and acts of administrative impropriety due to the meeting with ambassadors.

Therefore, the hypothesis of Bolsonaro becoming ineligible in case of certain criminal convictions, as provided for in the Clean Record Law, is also not improbable.

“In the event of a criminal conviction, ineligibility arises with the collegiate decision or with the final and unappealable decision, but the period extends to eight years after serving the sentence”, says Marcelo Peregrino, a lawyer specializing in electoral law and a member of Abradep ( Brazilian Academy of Electoral and Political Law).

Thiago Nicolai, a criminal expert specializing in business criminal law, recalls that the crimes are listed in the Clean Record Law, and that they include abuse of authority and crimes against the electoral law.

“From the moment this matter is analyzed in a collegiate body, such as the Court of Justice or the Federal Regional Court or in case of original criminal action, in the STJ or STF, this is already valid [a inelegibilidade por oito anos]”, he adds.