PT wants to rush TSE action to make Bolsonaro ineligible

The PT wants to take advantage of the commotion caused by the invasions of the headquarters of the three Powers to accelerate actions in the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) to make former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) ineligible. The party’s political strategists consider that it is the ideal moment to remove the former chief executive from the 2026 electoral dispute once and for all, for several reasons: the emergence of new “evidence” that he was supposedly considering or inciting a rupture in the democratic regime; a hostile composition of the TSE towards Bolsonaro, which will not last for long; and a political situation still reasonably favorable to the new government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

Lula spoke about this possibility, this Wednesday (18), and said that the possibility of the former head of the Executive having some kind of participation in the acts needs to be investigated. And, if this is eventually proven, he defended that there be punishment and until Bolsonaro becomes ineligible.

A recent demonstration that there is an open opportunity for this was given last Monday (16), when Minister Benedito Gonçalves, rapporteur for ineligibility actions at the TSE, accepted a request from the PDT to include in one of them, as evidence, the draft of a decree, seized at the home of former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres, in which Bolsonaro would decree, as president, a state of defense at the TSE for the “prompt reestablishment of fairness and correction of the 2022 electoral process” – an outline of an intervention in the Court to annul the election in which he was defeated.

In the decision, Gonçalves also asked Minister Alexandre de Moraes – who ordered the arrest of Torres and the search of his home, within the scope of the investigation into acts of vandalism in Brasília – “other documents and information resulting from the search and seizure that concern to the 2022 electoral process, especially those aimed at delegitimizing the results”. In practice, the action to make Bolsonaro ineligible could be supplied with evidence collected by determination of Moraes, who remains in charge of the TSE.

Although this decision was issued within the scope of an older action by the PDT, an allied party and member of the government, PT lawyers will still await the emergence of more elements in the investigations conducted by Moraes to feed their actions with “even more evidence robust”, in the expression of one of them, who asked not to be identified. The legal team understands that there may still be stronger evidence that Bolsonaro intended to carry out a coup, including with the help of direct assistants, such as some military personnel.

The PT has its own action, and similar to that of the PDT, which accuses Bolsonaro of abuse of political power for questioning the integrity of electronic voting machines. For the party, it would be a deliberate attitude to mobilize its base of supporters to delegitimize the electoral process and, thus, give basis and certain popular support to a change of tables.

It is a thesis that is probably receptive today among the majority of TSE ministers, in the group formed by Alexandre de Moraes, Ricardo Lewandowski, Cármen Lúcia and Benedito Gonçalves – during the campaign, the four almost always voted consensually and tough to remove Bolsonaro advertisements that they considered misleading, to the point of prohibiting him from calling Lula a thief and corrupt, for example.

The interest in speeding up the progress of actions, and in the coming months, is because there will be two embezzlements in this quartet: in May, Lewandowski retires and gives way to Kassio Nunes Marques, appointed by Bolsonaro and who remains faithful to him; and in November, Benedito Gonçalves ends his term at the TSE and will be replaced, as corregidor and rapporteur for actions, by Minister Raul Araújo, who has already shown signs of being more favorable to Bolsonaro.

It was his, for example, the decision given months before the campaign that prohibited artists from expressing support for Lula at the Lollapalooza music festival, in March 2022. In December, after the election, Araújo voted against the fine of R$ 22.9 million applied by Moraes to the PL, Bolsonaro’s party, as a result of the action to try to invalidate most of the votes in the second round, accusing malfunctioning of the electronic ballot boxes.

Gonçalves, on the contrary, has already shown a lot of openness to the requests of the PT and the PDT against Bolsonaro. Also during the campaign, he granted several injunctions to prevent Bolsonaro from using images of September 7 and international trips to London and New York in the campaign. The minister even vetoed the performance of “lives” at the Palácio da Alvorada.

After the election, he dispatched 12 of the 15 electoral judicial investigation actions (Aijes) that are still being processed by the TSE to make Bolsonaro ineligible. This type of action usually moves slowly and takes, on average, more than two years to process. In most dispatches, Gonçalves summoned PT, PDT and other parties that seek Bolsonaro’s ineligibility to refute the former president’s challenges to the accusations in the processes, of alleged abuse of political power or misuse of the media in the campaign.

Finally, PT leaders believe that the moment is more favorable to condemn Bolsonaro because his wear and tear is recent and also due to the fact that the new government still enjoys greater popularity, an asset that may dissipate during Lula’s term. An unfavorable situation for the president’s image, if it materializes in the future, takes the focus off Bolsonaro, and concentrates the attention of the political and legal world on the PT administration itself.

Bolsonaro’s defense

The report sought Bolsonaro’s defense to comment on the PT’s strategy to make him ineligible, but received no response. In the lawsuits, the ex-president’s lawyers have struggled to refute the accusations. There was still no manifestation in the PT’s action related to the questions against the ballot boxes, but the legal team has already contested similar imputations, of abuse, made by the PDT, for the same reason.

In this action, the defense argued that Bolsonaro’s questioning of the ballot box took place in July, before the campaign, during a meeting with ambassadors at the Palácio da Alvorada. The lawyers stated that it was not a campaign act, not least because it was directed at foreigners, but by the government. The event was on the official agenda of the president, and there was even an invitation to the then president of the TSE, Edson Fachin, to participate. According to them, it was an initiative of “institutional dialogue” on “a topic of public interest”.

To reinforce his defense, Bolsonaro appointed as witnesses, to testify in his favor, the former ministers Carlos França (Foreign Affairs) and Ciro Nogueira (Casa Civil), in addition to the former secretary of Strategic Affairs of the Presidency Flávio Rocha and his former – chief advisor João Henrique Nascimento de Freitas. Everyone must attend the TSE to testify on February 8th.

As for the PT action related to the ballot boxes, the defense has not yet manifested itself because Gonçalves amended the action to include two reports. One of them reported that the president of the Liberal Party, Valdemar da Costa Neto, asked former Minister of Justice Anderson Torres that the Federal Police investigate the electoral research institutes. Another revealed that Fernando Cerimedo, an Argentine who mentioned alleged fraud in Brazilian electronic voting machines in videos, would have a connection with the company Gaio.io, which also collaborated with the PL audit team that pointed out malfunctioning of the voting machines.

There are other elements that Bolsonaro will have to refute to get rid of a possible conviction.

Apart from these actions linked to the polls and of greater appeal among the ministers, the former president will still have to deal with accusations of using the machine for electoral benefit – on September 7, on international trips, in the use of palaces – and also in the accusation of the PT of allegedly orchestrating a “disinformation ecosystem” to attack Lula in the campaign.