Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said this Friday after learning that the Supreme Electoral Court had sentenced him to ineligibility until 2030, that he felt as if he had been stabbed in the back. Bolsonaro made the announcement in Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, where in 2018 he was stabbed in the stomach, which nearly killed him, by an evangelical pastor who was later declared insane and is still in prison.
“Here in Minas, I was stabbed in the stomach (during a political walk in the city of Juiz de Fora in 2018), and today I was stabbed in the back for alleged abuse of political power. In my case, I was removed from the presidency, and now they are judging me for my work in general,” Jair Bolsonaro complained, surrounded by supporters, admitting that he does not like being incompetent, but, he stressed, in politics, no one kills or dies, and the game isn’t over yet.
Shortly before the bombing, the Supreme Electoral Court, TSE, the highest instance of electoral justice in Brazil, convicted the former president of abuse of political power, with 5 judges voting to disqualify him and 2 to acquit him. Bolsonaro was found guilty of an electoral crime for summoning ambassadors from 40 countries to a meeting in the presidential palace last year on the eve of the presidential elections in which he was running for re-election, and convicted without proof of alleged shortcomings in the electoral system and even alleged fraud, formulated to remove him from the power of the TS itself, which attacked again today.
“They removed me from the presidency (Bolsonaro lost the presidential election last October by a narrow margin over Lula da Silva), massacred me and the TSE working against my proposals. I got banned a lot. Those who worked against me today boast of defeating a dictator like me who respected the Constitution. This effort was not recognized.”
This decision was just the first of many that the former president has yet to face in the near future, and one that could delay much and even make his project to run again for the presidency of Brazil unfeasible. There are 15 more or less pending cases in Bolsonaro’s Higher Electoral Court alone, there are several other cases against him with potential far greater penalties in the Federal Supreme Court, and there are still cases in the general courts. first instance on charges which had been suspended while he was in office and had immunity from office, but which are now active.
Author: Domingos Grilo Serrinha This Correspondent in Brazil
Source: CM Jornal
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