A majority on Brazil’s highest electoral court has voted to bar former President Jair Bolsonaro from public office until 2030 over his conduct during last year’s tightly contested elections.
The seven-member Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) voted five-to-two on Friday to convict the far-right leader of abuse of power in his push to cast doubt on the South American country’s electronic voting system.
Bolsonaro has been accused of rallying his supporters to reject his narrow loss to left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the October elections, culminating in an assault on government buildings earlier this year.
The court’s decision – once voting of all the justices concludes – means that Bolsonaro will not be able to contest the presidential elections in 2026, dealing a massive blow to the 68-year-old’s political future.
On Friday, he described the decision as a “stab in the back” and pledged to keep working to advance right-wing politics in Brazil.
In an interview with the Itatiaia radio station before Friday’s judgment, Bolsonaro also rejected any wrongdoing. “I have not attacked the voting system; I just showed its possible flaws,” he said. “This trial doesn’t make any sense.”
Al Jazeera’s Monica Yanakiew, reporting from Rio de Janeiro, said the former president has already signalled he plans to appeal up to the Brazilian Supreme Court, but it is unlikely that the court would rule in his favour.
“This decision means that he won’t be able to run for office until 2030,” Yanakiew said on Friday.
“That doesn’t mean that he is not a political player,” she added. “He still has a lot of popularity.”
The case focused on a July 18, 2022, meeting in which Bolsonaro used government staffers, the state television channel and the presidential palace in Brasilia to tell foreign ambassadors that the country’s electronic voting system was rigged. (AlJazeera)