Donald Trump is seated before a dinner with Jair Bolsonaro. Alex Brandon/AP
Watching the political developments in Brazil from the United States for the past several years has often felt like a kind of Groundhog Day series of parallel events—just with different languages and a two-year gap. Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s rise to power in 2018—he became known as the “Trump of the Tropics”—followed the election of his US counterpart by two years. The misinformation-plagued 2022 Brazilian presidential elections that saw Bolsonaro defeated came after Trump’s “Big Lie” scheme in 2020. Finally, Brazil’s own version of the insurrection on January 6 took place almost two years to the date of the attack on the US capitol.
But this week, Brazil may finally get ahead of the programming as the country’s Superior Electoral Court, known as the TSE, is set to begin a trial that could make Bolsonaro ineligible to run for office again until 2030, when he would be 75 years old.
The case at the center of the trial dates back to July 2022, when Bolsonaro held a now-infamous meeting at the presidential palace with dozens of foreign diplomats. On the occasion, shortly before the launch of his official reelection campaign, he gave a presentation that included an array of lies he has often repeated about the integrity of the country’s electronic voting system—which has been successfully employed since 1996—in order to baselessly raise the suspicion of fraud. “I know that you all want democratic stability in our country,” Bolsonaro said then. “And that will only be achieved with transparent, reliable elections.” The meeting, the New York Times reported at the time, left some foreign diplomats worried about the possibility that Bolsonaro might follow the lead of his American counterpart and dispute the 2022 ballot results.
Last July during Brazil's election, Bolsonaro summoned the diplomatic community to give a completely unfounded presentation alleging the voting system was vulnerable to fraud
This week, as a result, he is likely to lose his eligibility to run in elections until 2030 pic.twitter.com/xOS5A7YQML
— Brian Winter (@BrazilBrian) June 20, 2023
In the lead-up to the Brazilian elections last year, concerns that Bolsonaro might challenge the process were so high that the United States engaged in what new reporting by the Financial Times describes as a “quiet, year-long pressure campaign by the US government to urge the country’s political and military leaders to respect and safeguard democracy.” Michael McKinley, a former ambassador to Brazil told the newspaper the campaign, which involved the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department, and the military, “was a very unusual engagement.” The day after Bolsonaro’s briefing to the ambassadors, the US State Department publicly endorsed Brazil’s electoral system. “Elections conducted by Brazil’s capable and time-tested electoral system and democratic institutions serve as a model for nations in the hemisphere and the world,” a State Department spokesperson said.
Now, on Thursday, a seven-judge panel on Brazil’s electoral court will consider charges leveled by the Democratic Labor Party (PDT) that Bolsonaro abused his power to undermine public trust in the elections and advance his own political goals. Included in the list of charges is his alleged misuse of media outlets, since the meeting was broadcast live on government television and social media. Should he be convicted, his political career will be stalled for the next six years. The former president also faces 15 other cases in the electoral court. “Making Jair Bolsonaro ineligible is protecting democracy,” 21 organizations wrote in a letter to the court that garnered more than 145,000 signatures. “Those who don’t respect the laws of the game, can’t return to the playing field.”
Brazilian legal experts suggest that it is extremely likely that Bolsonaro will be deemed ineligible. The former president himself has acknowledged that he’s in an unfavorable position. Speaking about the trial recently, Bolsonaro said, “Let’s not panic about the outcome that might come…Obviously, I don’t want to lose political rights. We want to remain alive.” The trial that could quash Bolsonaro’s ambitions to lead the opposition in Brazil comes as Trump faces legal troubles of his own, including federal charges related to his mishandling of classified documents and obstruction of justice. Still, he continues to be the main GOP contender for 2024, while insisting on the lie that he won the 2020 elections. Moreover, unlike in Brazil, should Trump be convicted of a felony, he would still be able to run for president, which wouldn’t be unheard of. In 1920, the Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs joined the presidential race from a federal penitentiary in Atlanta while serving a 10-year-sentence for sedition.
It didn’t take long for Trump’s apologists to express solidarity with Bolsonaro. “Jair Bolsonaro—the ‘Trump’ of Brazil—lost a rigged 2022 presidential election to the socialist Lula da Silva,” Peter Navarro, the former Trump adviser who will stand trial in September on contempt of Congress charges, tweeted, “Today, Bolsonaro is facing bogus charges that, if found guilty, would rule him ineligible from running in the next TWO elections. Sound familiar?” Earlier this week, the former US president reportedly sent Bolsonaro a copy of his book “Letters to Trump” with a message that reads. “Jair, you’re GREAT.” The book dedicates four pages to Bolsonaro and includes a letter where Bolsonaro wrote: “You will always have a partner and friend in Brazil.”
