MPF wants Bolsonaro ineligible for “instilling distrust” about ballot boxes

The electoral deputy attorney general, Paulo Gustavo Gonet Branco, defended that former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) be punished with ineligibility for 8 years for “affecting the confidence of part of the population in the legitimacy” of the 2022 elections, in reason for criticism of electronic voting machines.

“The investigated person’s speech, allied to the warnings about a purpose of the Electoral Justice to favor his most notorious opponent, benefited the investigated strategic position in the context of the elections that are so close. It was expected that the behavior would instill distrust in the voting, counting and totaling of votes adopted. This potential was confirmed by the notorious facts, some of them violent, of non-conformity with the results of the presidential elections, in which they were branded as illegitimate and fraudulent”, stated the Electoral Attorney General’s Office (PGE) in the document.

“Therefore, a legal asset central to the democratic order was seriously affected”, says the opinion, delivered on Wednesday night (12) to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).

The confidential document, obtained by the People’s Gazette, is the final piece of PDT action that accuses Bolsonaro of abuse of political power and misuse of the media in last year’s presidential race. With it, the rapporteur of the case, Benedito Gonçalves, will now be able to compose his vote and ask the President of the Court, Alexandre de Moraes, for a date to bring the case to trial. The expectation is that this will occur by the beginning of May. The decision depends on a majority of at least four votes among the seven members of the court.

In the action, the PDT points to a misuse of purpose at the meeting with foreign ambassadors, held in July 2022 at the Palácio da Alvorada, in which the former president repeated suspicions about the integrity of the electronic voting system and the impartiality of the TSE and its ministers in the electoral process. For the party, there was damage to the normality and legitimacy of the elections, which justifies the punishment of ineligibility.

In his defense, Bolsonaro claimed that the event was aimed at debating the security and transparency of the ballot boxes and had no electoral motivation. Proof of this would be its realization before the beginning of the electoral campaign; the fact that it was addressed to foreign diplomats, who do not vote in the country; and even though ministers from the TSE and other higher courts were invited to discuss the matter at the meeting – none of them attended (read more about the defense below).

In the document delivered to the TSE, Paulo Gonet, who represents the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) in the process, refuted these arguments. He accused Bolsonaro of deliberately lying by pointing out fraud in the polls to favor the current president and winner of the dispute, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), ignoring clarifications from the TSE itself and the Federal Police about the absence of vote deviations. Furthermore, he would have gained personal benefit from delivering the speech as head of state and using social media and the TV Brazil to spread this message.

“The speech to foreign diplomatic authorities, which also intended to reach Brazilian authorities and which was evidently again impressing the population in general, culminated with warnings about the imminence of fraud, always associated with digital voting, indicating that the current system would be willing to forge an electoral result favorable to the candidate of the leftist party, who had always emerged as his main opponent”, wrote Paulo Gonet.

For him, Bolsonaro would have used the “prestige” and “imposition” of the position of president to “disturb pessimistic feelings regarding the legitimacy of the election”, “with insinuations and inflammatory statements” that had already been refuted by the TSE. “The speech attacked the electoral institutions, and at the same time that it gave reason for the electorate’s indisposition with the opposing candidate, who would be the beneficiary of the spurious schemes imagined, it attracted adherence to his position as a candidate harassed by the obscure gears of the type of policy he supported. it would be strange”, said the deputy electoral attorney, in a reference to Lula.

He adds that, after the elections, “there was an unprecedented mobilization of parts of the population that openly and publicly rejected the result of the election, for not being legitimate”, referring, then, to the camps set up in front of the Army barracks. in which Bolsonaro supporters asked for military intervention to review the calculation. “The images of last January 8th of destruction and blatant violence against the constituted Powers are still very present and clear. The gravity of the discourse against the reliability of the electronic voting system could not have a more expressive exposition”, states the opinion, in reference to the invasion and depredation of the seats of Congress, the Planalto Palace and the Federal Supreme Court earlier this year.

The deputy prosecutor, however, avoids blaming Bolsonaro directly for acts of vandalism. He says that such an assessment, which could lead to criminal punishment, will be up to the Attorney General of the Republic, Augusto Aras, in an investigation into his alleged incitement to the invasion. In the electoral field, however, he says that Bolsonaro should be punished, but not his vice-presidential candidate, Walter Braga Neto, for considering that he had no role in questioning and criticizing the electronic voting machines.

What the MPF says about Bolsonaro’s statements

Throughout the 45-page opinion, Paulo Gonet reproduced excerpts of action that he had already presented, shortly after the meeting with ambassadors, which led Bolsonaro to be fined R$ 20,000 for having, at the event, conveyed “facts known to be untrue ” about the polls.

The vice-prosecutor of elections refutes several of the former president’s statements to diplomats. One of them is that, in the 2018 election, several voters would have tried to vote in his number, but the ballot box would register 13, the number of the PT candidate at the time, Fernando Haddad. Gonet recorded that an expertise made on a video that demonstrated this alleged failure pointed out that it was a montage.

He also refuted Bolsonaro’s accusations that a hacker could have tampered with the ballot box programming during an invasion of TSE systems between April and November 2018. In the Federal Police investigation to investigate the attack, the delegate concluded that the hacker did not access the source code that could change votes, but another in which it could just copy voter and candidate information – the goal would be to commercialize the data.

Based on official information from the TSE, he also contested Bolsonaro’s claim that the system would not be auditable, which would only be possible with the printed vote. The Deputy Prosecutor mentioned, on this point, procedures adopted by the Court for specialists and external entities to verify the functioning of the ballot box programs.

He also refuted Bolsonaro’s statement that international observers invited by the TSE to attest to the fairness of the election would not be able to monitor the system, because it is electronic, and that the count would be carried out by a third-party company. “The assertion seeks to produce the wrong impression that the voting process is obscure, unlikely to generate confidence and equipped to manipulate the result in favor of one candidate and to the detriment of another”, says the opinion of the Electoral Attorney General.

The body also refuted Bolsonaro’s insinuations that the electoral process was vitiated by the STF’s decision to annul Lula’s convictions and make him eligible again. “The uttered assertions are aimed at encouraging part of the electorate, aiming to cast doubt on the possible positive result of the opposing candidate, who is mentioned in the speech, instilling the impression of the existence of a spurious combination of energies to favor him”, he says.

Finally, Paulo Gonet rejected the allegation that Bolsonaro’s objective was to debate the issue of ballot box security institutionally, in an act of government. He argues that, in 2021, Congress had already rejected the proposal, defended by the former president, to implement the printed vote in the country. Still, Bolsonaro would have continued to cast doubt on the system, including in live broadcasts and interviews, facts that were also considered by the deputy prosecutor to defend his ineligibility.

“No relevant new fact was pointed out that would justify the resumption of the discussion. The criticisms of the President of the Republic, who assumed the stature of Head of State to utter them publicly, can only be seen as a warning to Brazilians and to the world that the results of the elections could not be received as reliable and legitimate, all of this, moreover, in a context in which electoral polls placed the opponent of the investigated as the best positioned in the citizens’ preference”, he said.

At the meeting with ambassadors, Bolsonaro defended that the TSE adopt measures suggested by the Armed Forces in the voting system, which, according to him, “practically stop the possibility of manipulation of numbers”.

How Bolsonaro defends himself in the process

In the final allegations, the last manifestation of the defense delivered in the process, Bolsonaro’s lawyers insist that the event, held before the campaign, had a government character – and therefore cannot be investigated by the Electoral Justice – and unrelated to the 2022 elections. .

The meeting with ambassadors, they said, was “in the interest of Brazil’s foreign relations, given the public debate established at the time”. The objective would be legitimate, with the aim of improving the system, as there was a concern with security and transparency, given the various signs of problems and risks of invasion. “There was no anti-democratic hostility to the electoral system at the event held on 07/18/2022”, the lawyers also said.

The defense reinforces that the target audience of the meeting were ambassadors without voting rights in Brazil and that the transmission, through the networks and TV Brazilwas due to the fact that it was a public event, which, like so many others, was always broadcast on official channels.

“At no time were there elections in the strict sense. No vote was asked. There was no attack on opponents […] The transmission of the event by the EBC, far from being abusive, occurred naturally, since it was a public event – ​​and not an electoral one –, given that it is the role of the state-owned company to publicize and provide transparency to public government events,” said the defense. .

In addition, he attached documents showing that the expenses for holding the meeting amounted to R$ 12,200, a “moderate” and “truly Franciscan” value, in the words of the lawyers.

Finally, they reject the inclusion in the process, as evidence, of a draft decree, seized by the PF at the home of former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres, which provided for the imposition of a state of defense on the TSE for the Armed Forces to review the counting of votes. They say that there is no proof of connection between the document and Bolsonaro.

In addition to defending himself at the TSE, Bolsonaro’s defense also triggered the STF last Tuesday (11), through an extraordinary appeal. The purpose of this action is to overturn the R$ 20,000 fine imposed as a result of the same meeting.

At the Supreme Court, the defense of the former president maintains that the punishment violates his constitutional right to freedom of expression and, therefore, must be overturned. If this is recognized, for the same reason any ineligibility could also be later revoked.

“Freedom of expression acquires greater relevance in contexts of electoral disputes, since free speech and political debate are essential parts of the consolidation of the democratic life of societies, so that publicly exposing opinions is a constitutive fact of democracy itself, sounding undue restrictions like the one highlighted here without the judge demonstrating the need and adequacy of the sanction”, says Bolsonaro’s defense in the appeal taken to the STF.

The resource has not yet been distributed to one of the ministers of the Court, which will be done by drawing lots. In March, the president of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes, ruled that this appeal to the Supreme Court was inadmissible. He mentioned the unanimous decision of the TSE, last year, which maintained the fine for irregular advertising in the speech to the ambassadors.

“Manipulation of facts, (…) as an artificial way of raising support by misleading people, compromising the right of everyone to obtain minimally honest information, all of this with attacks that put the ‘democratic game’ itself at risk, it is content that goes beyond discursive freedom”, says the ruling.