TSE: Carmen Lúcia should give decisive vote against Bolsonaro – 06/29/2023 – Politics

Responsible for the vote in the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) which should be decisive to form a majority for the ineligibility of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), Minister Cármen Lúcia came out in defense this Thursday (29) of the rapporteur of the action, Minister Benedito Gonçalves.

Cármen interrupted minister Raul Araújo, who was reading a vote against Bolsonaro’s ineligibility and saying there was no connection between the action and the draft of the coup found by the Federal Police in the house of former minister Anderson Torres.

If convicted, the former president will be able to run again in 2030, aged 75, thus staying away from three elections until then (one of them being the 2026 national).

The session will be resumed this Friday, at 12h, precisely with Carmen’s vote. The current score is 3-1 against the former president, depending on just one more vote for the formation of a majority for ineligibility. There are still votes for Carmen, Kassio Nunes Marques and Alexandre de Moraes.

The PDT action focuses on the meeting in July last year with foreign ambassadors at the Alvorada Palace. At the time, less than three months before the election, Bolsonaro made false and distorted statements about the electoral process, claiming to be based on official data, in addition to seeking to discredit TSE ministers.

“It didn’t seem to me that the reporting minister’s vote had any reference, neither authorship nor responsibility, of the first investigated [com a minuta golpista]”, said Carmen.

The first investigated, as he is called in the action, is Bolsonaro. “I, for example, in my vote, do not even use this data. I only voted for the scene that is the object of care [a reunião com embaixadores]”, he added.

“Your Excellency is excluding something, but without relevance to what the rapporteur would have said. I don’t know if Minister Benedito accepts my understanding in the sense that Your Excellency did not express an opinion on this document, this draft, nor was that the basis for vote. Just to be clear”, said Carmen, addressing Benedito.

President of the TSE, Moraes, added: “The long vote of the rapporteur minister was based on the meeting. The fact of having put together this coup draft in no way affected the rapporteur’s vote, and the responsibility for that has not yet been verified.”

Benedito agreed and said that “the draft is not being verified”. “[A minuta] it was a reflection of the conclusion I had in my vote, of the effects of the speech made in 2018 and in the meeting that is being investigated regarding the untruth of the electronic voting machines”.

Raul countered and said that there was “plenty of reference” to the minutes in Benedito’s vote.

The process at the TSE targets Bolsonaro and Walter Braga Netto, a former minister who was a candidate for vice on the defeated ticket of the PL to the Presidency in 2022. A majority has already been formed, however, against the ineligibility of Braga Netto —the four ministers who have already voted had this understanding.

Two of the ministers who voted this Thursday, Floriano and Tavares, are professors at USP and took office in May, in a change in the composition of the court influenced by the president of the TSE, Alexandre de Moraes.

On Tuesday, the rapporteur at the TSE had stated that it was not possible to turn a blind eye to anti-democratic speeches with lies and violent speeches, still criticizing the trivialization of the coup d’état and highlighting the epic attacks by the former president using the image of the Armed Forces.

Benedito defended that his vote be forwarded to the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União) and to ongoing criminal inquiries at the STF (Federal Supreme Court) to determine whether investigations against Bolsonaro for the conduct under debate are possible beyond the Electoral Justice.

The ex-president’s lawyer, Tarcísio Vieira de Carvalho, already admits to appealing to the STF in case of defeat in the electoral court.

The action against Bolsonaro is an Aije (electoral judicial investigation action), which can be filed up to the date of the candidate’s graduation.

This instrument aims to investigate conduct that may affect the equality of dispute in the election, such as abuse of economic power, authority or misuse of the media for the benefit of a candidate.

According to Bolsonaro’s defense, the action brought by the PDT is “impostor and riddled with ideological falsehood” and the political movement represented by the former president is not on trial.