MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

TSE gives thumbs down to Bolsonaro's electoral ad fraud allegations

Lula is the favorite for Sunday's elections with 49% of the vote intentions against Bolsonaro's 45%, according to Datafolha

Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) Wednesday rejected a petition from incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro's campaign team that alleged irregularities in the broadcast of radio electoral propaganda be investigated.

TSE Chief Justice Alexandre De Moraes turned down the request on the grounds that it had not been accompanied by evidence, which could constitute an “electoral crime” four days ahead of the runoff with Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva.

Bolsonaro's legal team denounced Monday that “innumerable radios are not broadcasting adequately” the electoral propaganda determined by the justice, in an alleged “electoral fraud” in favor of Lula.

Allies of the Liberal Party's (PL) candidate claimed to have been harmed by the non-transmission of 154,000 electoral ads, most of them on radio stations in the Brazilian northeast, Lula's stronghold.

“There is an expressly inept request because they do not even identify days, times, and radio channels in which the electoral norm would have been breached,” De Moraes argued. The magistrate also pointed out that the report submitted by Bolsonaro's campaign was conducted by a company “not specialized in audits.”

De Moraes added that the president's team could be committing an electoral crime and ordered the opening of an inquest by the Supreme Federal Court (STF), of which he is also a magistrate, against the PL for misinformation and attacks on the institutions.

Bolsonaro insisted Wednesday after De Moraes' ruling that “tens of thousands” of radio stations omitted his electoral propaganda, something that “unbalances” the lawsuit and “interferes in the outcome of the election.”

“We will go to the ultimate consequences, within the Constitution, to enforce what our audits found, a huge imbalance,” he said in a statement at the Alvorada Palace.

According to rumors from Brasilia, Bolsonaro's campaign team will seek to tie the TSE to allegedly favoring Lula. Bolsonaro suggested the TSE would have “much to explain in this case.”

“The differentiation and treatment of the other candidate [Lula] is proven, which could - I cannot say - even have his participation at some point. If the TSE had nothing to do with it, the summary dismissal of this servant and the way he was led out of the TSE is incomprehensible,” Bolsonaro said about the dismissal of Alexandre Gomes Machado, who was responsible in the court for making the insertions of the electoral propaganda on radio and television available.

Bolsonaro also said his campaign would retain a third audit to back up the complaint filed with the TSE and that De Moraes' ruling would be appealed.

Bolsonaro's press coordinator Fábio Wajngarten used social networks to give more details of the survey that supports the complaint. “The media audits hired by the campaign are renowned, certified, and high-tech,” he said.

Wajngarten commented on the alleged discrepancies in radio insertions in Minas Gerais. According to the audit, just between October 7 and 14, 90% of the radio stations in Minas Gerais showed 15,101 more insertions for Lula's PT. “It is an unprecedented scandal!!!” he wrote.

Lula is the favorite for Sunday's elections with 49% of the vote intentions against Bolsonaro's 45%, according to Datafolha consulting firm.