Bolsonaro’s ineligibility may correct re-election flaws – 07/03/2023 – Dora Kramer

The Electoral Justice is usually generous towards rulers, whether they are winners or losers. Abuses of power are frequent and punishments are very rare. In the sphere of the Executive, then, they only occurred when the mayor or governor was out of office.

With presidents of the Republic it had never happened. We have now seen, and for the first time, a former president being punished due to the abuse of prerogatives in an election campaign.

The Superior Electoral Court made Jair Bolsonaro ineligible five months after the end of his term, in an unprecedented decision that may be didactic if rigor becomes the rule.

We will see from now on if the critics of the sentence will be able or not to accuse the electoral court of having made an exception judgment. It is true that Bolsonaro’s crimes went beyond electoral borders. They went into the field of aggression against the rule of law and the former president will still be liable for this in the criminal sphere.
But it is in the issue of the excesses of the powerful in hunting votes that lies the lesson to be learned and followed. If not with the stridency and forcefulness of the now ineligible ex-president, it is a fact that rulers go beyond limits, notably when seeking a second consecutive term.

Here it is customary to blame the institution of re-election for these misdeeds. Many good people consider that the renewal license in office is the great evil of Brazilian politics and that the thing would be solved with the end of the re-election instituted in 1997. Before, that was the problem.

The evils of the political/party system are ancient. They come from afar, not only because of the default of the norm, but because of the misdeeds of people combined with the leniency of Justice for decades.

Ending the re-election does not solve. It helps when the law is rigorously applied, which, as I once heard from Roberto Campos (the grandfather), will be strong enough as long as the law is not weak.

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