Case against Moro could leave him with a dirty record until 2030 – 01/28/2024 – Power

In addition to losing his mandate, senator Sergio Moro (União Brasil-PR) could be ineligible for eight years if he is defeated in the action pending in the Electoral Court since the end of 2022.

The case could go to trial at the TRE (Regional Electoral Court) of Paraná before March, but should only have an outcome at the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), as there is the possibility of an appeal to Brasília against the regional court’s decision.

The result of representations filed by PL and PT, the action mainly points to alleged abuse of economic power during Moro’s pre-campaign linked to the 2022 election. In the view of these parties, the former judge of Operation Lava Jato had made excessive expenses before of the formal campaign, which unbalanced the dispute between the competitors. Moro denies it.

If the Electoral Court considers the action to be valid and understands that there was an abuse of economic power, the consequences would be the revocation of the ticket (that is, the loss of the mandate) and ineligibility for eight years, counting from the 2022 election. In other words, Moro would have a “dirty record” until 2030.

This is provided for in an excerpt from the Ineligibility Law (complementary law 64/1990), amended in 2010 by the Clean Record Law (complementary law 135/2010).

There, it is defined that all those people who have been the target of “representation deemed valid by the Electoral Court, in a final and unappealable decision, are considered ineligible [quando não cabe mais recurso] or handed down by a collegial body, in the process of investigating abuse of economic or political power, for the election in which they compete or have graduated, as well as for those that take place in the following eight years”.

However, even if the regional court considers the action to be valid, the revocation of the mandate and ineligibility can be suspended by appealing to the TSE. With this, he will be able to leave the Senate and become a “dirty record” only after the decision of the highest court of the Electoral Court.

Furthermore, ineligibility does not necessarily affect the three members of the ticket – in addition to Moro, lawyer Luis Felipe Cunha (first alternate) and businessman Ricardo Augusto Guerra (second alternate). Electoral law experts explain that, even with revocation, ineligibility is only applied to those directly responsible for the illicit acts.

In the case of Moro, the Electoral Public Ministry’s own opinion states that Guerra, second substitute, did not act in the pre-campaign period, the main target of the action, and suggests that ineligibility does not apply to him.

Another consequence, if the ticket headed by Moro is overthrown, is the holding of a new election in Paraná for the Senate seat.

According to an excerpt from the Electoral Code, the “decision of the Electoral Court that results in the denial of registration, the revocation of the diploma or the loss of the mandate of a candidate elected in a majority election leads, after the final judgment, to the holding of new elections, regardless of the number of spoiled votes.”

When the PL filed a representation against Moro in the TRE, the party also made a request that, in the event of the impeachment of the former Lava Jato judge, the ticket that came second in the 2022 race – headed by Paulo Martins, from the acronym of Jair Bolsonaro (PL)—would temporarily assume the seat in the Senate, until a new dispute takes place at the polls.

But, at the end of last year, the STF (Supreme Federal Court) decided that, in cases like this, the seat remains empty until the supplementary election takes place. In other words, the second most voted candidate does not provisionally assume the position.

Moro received 1,953,188 votes in the 2022 polls, or 33.50% of the total. Close behind were Martins, with 29.12%, and Álvaro Dias (Podemos), with 23.94%. Six other candidates were also in the race.

A TSE ordinance published at the end of last year reserved eight dates in the 2024 calendar for possible supplementary elections in the country.

There are six dates from January to June and two other dates in November and December. Thus, the supplementary elections do not conflict with the election that will define new mayors and councilors across the country, whose official kickoff is in July, when party conventions begin.

Even without a decision by the Electoral Court on the Moro case, the possibility of a supplementary election has already sparked a race among politicians interested in the former Lava Jato judge’s seat.

As revealed by the Panel in July, almost ten names are circulating on the list of pre-candidates for the virtual election, including Martins, the federal deputy and national president of the PT, Gleisi Hoffmann, and the licensed federal deputy Ricardo Barros (PP), former leader of Bolsonaro in the Chamber.