Setback for Bolsonaro and his reform of the electoral system | Brazilian Chamber of Deputies buried executive draft

The Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, with the participation of the ruling bloc, inflicted a brutal setback on President Jair Bolsonaro by rejecting the constitutional amendment aimed at modifying the electronic ballot system which had been questioned by the head of state .. The reform required two-thirds (308 votes) to be approved and the ruling party obtained 229 votes to 218 against, with which it was dismissed.

Bolsonarowho this wednesday He assured that the deputies who voted against the printed vote made it “blackmail”, had come to threaten not to recognize the result of the presidential elections of 2022 since he claims to be convinced that the electronic ballot boxes in force in the country since 1996 encourage “fraud”, although he did not provide any evidence in this regard. Tuesday’s vote coincided with a Controversial and unprecedented military parade in front of the Planalto Palace in which the far-right leader participated.

Bolsonaro was promoting a print vote parallel to that of the electronic ballot box, but in recent weeks it has become a flag of the president to denounce that he was going to suffer fraud in 2022, elections for which former president Luiz Inácio Lula da SIlva appears to be the favorite in the polls, of the Workers’ Party (PT).

MPs from the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party, two prominent pro-government blocs, joined the opposition and voted against to bury the initiative in Tuesday night’s debates. “The result has not reached the quorum for approval, it will be archived and this file is closed this year. There is neither time nor space to start a new discussion, ”said the Bolsonarist Speaker of the House at the end of the session, Arthur Lira. “There will be no coup d’etat against our democracy (…) The stretch of the rope has already exceeded all limits “said Lira, who proposed the vote after Bolsonaro called the head of the Higher Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Luiz Barroso, a “son of a bitch”.

Lira recalled that parliamentarians were elected by electronic vote, now interviewed by Bolsonaro, and noted that the Brazilian president promised to recognize the result. The MP is one of the leaders of the so-called “Centrão” bloc, the main supporter of a president whose popularity has fallen since March as well as his chances of re-election.

For its part Elvino José Bohn Gass, PT MP, condemned during Tuesday’s debate: “The electronic ballot box is auditable, fraud is the printed vote”. Unlike the measure, Bohn Gass asked to focus on tackling the economic and health crisis caused by the coronavirus.

The discussion in the precinct included an image unseen since the end of the dictatorship in 1985: More than 1,500 military vehicles, including tanks and armored vehicles in poor condition, passed through Plaza de los Tres Poderes in Brasilia before Government House, Congress and the Supreme Court as part of a formal Navy act.

Opponents of the government, both on the left and on the more moderate right, consider that the decision of the Chamber of Deputies ends Bolsonaro’s crusade for the printed vote and that should reduce the institutional tension the president has generated with his campaign to discredit the electoral system.

the vice president Hamilton Mourao, distant from Bolsonaro, said that “The Congress has decided and is decided”, For what believe that “the case is over” and that it helps to overcome institutional conflict. Mourao also commented on the “unusual” military parade Bolsonaro led to Congress shortly before the vote, which the opposition saw as a clear attempt to “intimidate” lawmakers. “If that was it, it was extremely ridiculous,” he said.

Far from lowering the intensity of his words, Bolsonaro He came out on Wednesday to reject the vote in Congress. “We will have elections that will not be reliable.”, said the president, who said that “The majority of the population is in favor” of changing the electronic ballot system despite the rejection of the bill by the lower house.

In one of his usual mass baths among the faithful at the gates of the Palacio de la Alvorada, Bolsonaro admitted that it lacks evidence but that there were hackers who “picnicked” the electoral system to avoid his first round victory in 2018.

The president said those who did not vote or voted against Tuesday “have been blackmailed” by the TSE because they have cases pending before the Federal Supreme Court (STF), the Supreme Court of Brazil . “Half voted for us, a part abstained and others voted with blackmail, for fear of reprisals”said Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro continues to assert that the TSE does not want to pass the ballots in favor of its biggest political opponent, former President Lula. The highest electoral body in the country has opened an administrative procedure for this discrediting campaign and asked the Supreme Court to criminally investigate the president for spreading false news against democratic institutions and even secret federal police documents, with which he tried to justify his crusade.

Like little, the far-right leader is singled out for his management of the pandemic: the Supreme Court opened an investigation for procrastination in a corruption scandal over an alleged purchase of vaccines with bonuses by the Ministry of Health.