MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Prosecution wants Bolsonaro convicted for advocating against electronic voting system

Gonçalves' report was read out Thursday

Brazil's Deputy Electoral Prosecutor Paulo Gonet Thursday insisted on the need to convict former President Jair Bolsonaro of abuse of political power and misuse of the media for his remarks against the electronic voting system during a meeting in July last year as the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) began trying the case, Agencia Brasil reported.

If the Prosecution's request is granted, Bolsonaro will be disenfranchised for eight years and therefore not be eligible to participate in the next elections.

In Gonet's understanding, Bolsonaro committed an abuse of public power by transforming the event with ambassadors into an “electoral act” to give a speech of “distrust and discredit” about the 2022 elections. “The event was deformed into an instrument of electioneering maneuver, translating the misuse of purpose,” he said.

The prosecutor said that false information about the elections was spread by broadcasting the event on social networks and on state-run TV Brasil.

“The meeting was regimented so that the international community and Brazilian citizens, through television and internet dissemination, were exposed to untrue allegations to affect confidence in the voting system,” the prosecutor concluded.

The trial was adjourned. It will resume on June 27.

During Thursday's session, lawyer Walber de Moura Agra argued that the then-president launched untrue attacks on the electoral system, including insinuations of the possibility of fraud and lack of auditing of ballot boxes. “There was a meeting with a clear deviation of purpose to demoralize the institutions, and in an international way. Public assets were used for electoral purposes,” he said.

Bolsonaro's defense lawyer Tarcísio Vieira de Carvalho said that the meeting with ambassadors took place before the election period, on July 18, when Bolsonaro was not an official candidate for the 2022 elections. Carvalho explained that the meeting had no electoral bias and was done as an “institutional counterpoint.”

“The president, yes, perhaps, in an inappropriate tone, acid, excessively forceful, made statements about the Brazilian electoral system, about necessary improvements to the system of harvesting votes,” said Tarcísio Carvalho.

Also Thursday, TSE case rapporteur Justice Benedito Gonçalves' report was read out. Gonçalves cited other evidence against Bolsonaro, such as the seizure of the “coup draft” at the home of former Justice Minister Anderson Torres. The draft provided for a State of Defense decree at the TSE to contest Lula's victory in the 2022 elections.

(Source: Agencia Brasil)