Moro’s defense talks about lack of rules for pre-campaign – 04/01/2024 – Power

The defense of senator Sergio Moro (União Brasil-PR) argued that there is a lack of rules regulating pre-campaign expenses during oral arguments in a trial at the TRE (Regional Electoral Court) of Paraná.

“There is no law that regulates pre-campaign in Brazil,” said lawyer Gustavo Guedes, who represents the former judge. “There’s no way to report on the pre-campaign. Not Moro or anyone else,” he said.

Moro is the target of electoral actions that accuse him of having abused economic power when running in the 2022 election. Led by Jair Bolsonaro’s PL and Lula’s PT federation (also containing the PC do B and the PV), the representations argue that he had made excessive expenditures during the pre-election campaign linked to the last election, which the senator’s defense denies.

The lawyer also sought to explore the differences in the calculations of pre-campaign expenses between PL, PT and the Public Ministry. “What is the value of the abuse? How much are you saying that Senator Moro benefited illegally to be elected senator of Paraná? And to this day there is no answer”, he asked.

“Here from the tribune, different values ​​of abuse were brought from those that were in the initial petitions, in the final arguments.” He also maintained that “until this judgment there is no criteria in Brazil for pre-campaign” and that there would be a single judgment on advertising pointing out the need for expenses to be modest, adding that there would be no definition in this regard.

According to the lawyer, among the criteria to be used for the calculation, in the case of Moro, is to consider only expenses made in Paraná, which are relevant to the campaign and which have brought electoral benefits. According to him, the PT and PL did not individualize expenses. For defense, the acronyms placed collective expenses (of more than one pre-candidate) only in Moro’s account.

In his statement during the trial, prosecutor Marcelo Godoy stated that there are in fact few precedents regarding pre-campaign spending, but that there are already indications from the TSE that they need to be “moderate, proportional and transparent”. In an opinion signed in December, Godoy defended the revocation of Moro’s mandate.

Moro joined Podemos at the end of 2021 with an eye on the presidential contest. In March 2022, he left the party, announcing his affiliation with União Brasil and a candidacy for the Senate for São Paulo. In June, after the Electoral Court barred the change of electoral domicile to São Paulo, he announced that he would be a candidate for the Senate from Paraná.

For PT and PL, pre-campaign spending, initially aimed at the dispute for Palácio do Planalto, became “disproportionate” and “suppressed the chances of other competitors” for the Senate in Paraná.

Moro’s defense maintained, throughout the process, among its arguments, that the expenses incurred between November 2021 and the beginning of June 2022 could not even be considered, precisely because the pre-candidate was seeking other positions. He also argues that the electoral victory took place in the face of all the political capital obtained by the former judge since Lava Jato, concluding that there was no relevant impact of pre-campaign spending on the result.

“Senator Moro was not elected because of a pre-campaign, he was elected because people from Paraná wanted to elect him because of his history of fighting corruption,” said Guedes during the trial.

In an opinion, the representative of the Public Ministry, prosecutor Marcelo Godoy, spoke in favor of Moro’s impeachment. Although he assesses that there was abuse of economic power, the opinion does not see, for example, improper use of the media, as the acronyms suggested.

The parties that joined against Moro point to the case of senator Selma Arruda’s impeachment as emblematic of excessive pre-campaign spending. The former judge’s defense, in turn, seeks to differentiate the senator’s situation from the precedent suggested.

In 2019, by 6 votes to 1, the TSE revoked the mandate of Judge Selma (Podemos-MT) upon understanding that there was abuse of economic power and also illicit fundraising linked to the 2018 electoral campaign. The conclusion was that there was an omission of significant amounts used to pay campaign expenses in the pre-election period.