Brazil’s electoral ombudsman, Benedito Gonçalves, on Tuesday voted in favor of convicting former President Jair Bolsonaro for abusing his former office to sow distrust in the electoral system. If convicted by the seven-member electoral court, Mr. Bolsonaro will be barred from holding public office for eight years.
The trial began last week, when Justice Gonçalves read a report recapping the case and laying out the arguments from both the prosecution and defense teams.
The case was prompted by a petition from the center-left Democratic Labor Party (PDT), which in August 2022 asked that electoral officials bar Mr. Bolsonaro from running for re-election altogether for having hosted foreign diplomats for a meeting at the presidential residence, during which the former president spread disinformation about the electoral process.
The lawsuit argues that, as president, Mr. Bolsonaro was in a unique position to unite an audience of foreign diplomats, a privilege his electoral rivals did not enjoy. He abused this power, the petition added, to promote his campaign platform, which included attacks on the integrity of the election itself, using public television in the process.
During the meeting with diplomats, Mr. Bolsonaro also expressed concern about the possibility that foreign governments would immediately recognize a victory for his opponent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which was the most likely scenario according to the polls. Indeed, this proved to be the case, with key leaders congratulating Lula on his win on the night of the runoff election on October 30.
Justice Gonçalves’s report last week was foreboding for Mr. Bolsonaro. It shows that key defense witnesses, such as far-right pundit Augusto Nunes, former Chief of Staff Ciro Nogueira, and pro-Bolsonaro Congressman Filipe Barros, asserted “they were never aware of the existence of fraud in the electronic voting machines.”
Ultimately, the electoral ombudsman held Mr. Bolsonaro fully responsible for the meeting with the ambassadors.
“It is not possible to turn a blind eye to the anti-democratic effects of violent rhetoric and lies that jeopardize the credibility of the electoral justice system,” Justice Gonçalves said when reading his opinion. For Justice Gonçalves, Mr. Bolsonaro indeed abused his power by using his “position as head of state” to “degrade” the political system — and dangerously flirted with putschism.
Mr. Bolsonaro himself and key allies have already anticipated a conviction for months. The chairman of Mr. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, said in late January that the former president would be “even stronger” as a kingmaker than as a candidate himself. He later began touting former First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro as a possible replacement as the leader of the far-right.
The former president has said that his meeting with foreign ambassadors was a reaction to a similar initiative by Justice Edson Fachin, who served as Brazil’s chief electoral justice early in 2022.
In May last year, Mr. Fachin hosted some 70 diplomats for a presentation on the electoral process to demonstrate the baselessness of Mr. Bolsonaro’s red herrings, and had them participate in a mock election with the electronic voting machine. An enraged Mr. Bolsonaro said at the time that Justice Fachin had “raped democracy.”
Last week, Mr. Bolsonaro told reporters the meeting was “an answer to Mr. Fachin” — implicitly admitting his behavior was aimed at the electoral court rather than at rival presidential candidates.
Six justices are left to vote. The court has also scheduled a sitting for Thursday, but a final decision may be delayed if one of the justices requests more time to review the case record.
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