Brazil: Jair Bolsonaro continues his crusade against electronic voting | The Higher Electoral Court asked him for explanations

Following a series of unfounded accusations by President Jair Bolsonaro about irregularities in the Brazilian electoral system, the The Higher Electoral Tribunal (TSE) opened an investigation for the president to explain the complaints he made without presenting any evidence. As Bolsonaro responded with a call to that the population arm itself “after the example of the people of the United States”.

“I want to tell you that every dictatorship has been preceded by a disarmament campaign. For me it’s different: good people must be armed like the American people. While prototypes of dictators do not want to assert their will in our beloved homeland called Brazil, ”Bolsonaro said in front of a handful of followers, in a speech broadcast on his social networks and in clear reference to what happened in the United States when a Crowd of far-right supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol to avoid confirmation of Joe Biden’s triumph and defeat of the Republican mogul.

“There will be no elections”

With 14 months of the next elections, the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is leading all the polls. In recent weeks, Bolsonaro has gone so far as to assert that if in 2022 the country does not return to ballot voting, “there will be no elections”, despite the fact that in Brazil electronic voting has since been adopted. 1996. The president even pointed the finger at the president of the TSE and member of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), Luis Roberto Barroso, for “conspiracy” to commit a “swindle” in favor of Lula.

Barroso announced that launch an administrative process to investigate Bolsonaro’s comments on the voting system, it can lead to the possible candidacy of the president being vetoed by the electorate. The holder of the TSE He also asked the Supreme Court to include the president in an investigation into the dissemination of false news and “attacks” against democratic institutions. If included by the CSJ, Bolsonaro should respond to criminal proceedings that would jeopardize his continuity within the executive.

In either case, the statement made by the president of Brazil last Thursday on his social media and which was also broadcast on state television would be a key element. For two hours, the president reiterated, without any evidence, that electronic ballot boxes led to fraud in all elections, including those he won in 2018.

“There will be chaos”

This Tuesday Bolsonaro spoke for about half an hour to his supporters at the gate of the Alvorada Palace, the president reiterated his accusations and said that if the electronic ballot system is not changed “there will be chaos” and he took the opportunity to stir up the specter of communism and the return of the left to power, citing Cuba, Venezuela and Argentina as examples.

“Unreliable elections will not be admitted. My fight is with Barroso, not with all the judges. He is a minister of the Supreme Court who wants to impose his will,” said Bolsonaro, whom all the polls consider the loser elections of 2022. Barroso he was supported by almost all political parties, including the ruling party, which denied accusations of lack of transparency in elections with electronic ballot boxes. On Monday, the president of the TSE issued a statement signed by his 16 predecessors and Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who will be the next head of the electorate when he takes office shortly before the elections scheduled for October 2022. In the joint statement, they claim that the electronic ballot boxes “have succeeded in eliminating a past of electoral fraud which has marked the history of Brazil”.