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Ineligible for the next eight years. With the condemnation of the Superior Electoral Tribunal, the curtain falls on the former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, cut off from the 2026 presidential elections while the orphaned right is looking for its new dolphin. Bolsonaro, visibly upset by the decision, reacted in a press conference, just as the president of the Tribunal, Alexandre de Morais – who has always been his sworn enemy – was giving reasons for his vote of conviction.
“Some sectors of society and the Higher Electoral Tribunal have made a massacre on me – the ultra-conservative leader shouted to the microphones of the media – . I have respected the constitution, I have worked within the perimeter of legality», he continued in a flowing speech, warning that Brazil «is on the road to a dictatorship». Five out of seven judges found the former head of state guilty of abuse of power and distorted use of the media for electoral purposes. While the episode of the meeting with the ambassadors of July 2022, which brought Bolsonaro to trial, was only the starting point to explore his responsibilities in the conspiratorial plots, which resulted in the sovereign attack on the Palaces of Democracy on 8 January in Brasilia.
Benedito Goncalves was one of the harshest in motivating the sentence. In a hearing that lasted over three hours and was dedicated exclusively to his presentation, the magistrate relied on the coup document found in the house of the former Bolsonarist minister, Anderson Torres, to underline how the sovereign leader “flirted dangerously with the coup”, pushed his supporters towards “collective paranoia”, spreading “fake news”.
The only ones to speak in favor of the former head of state – as expected – were the magistrates Raul Araujo and Nunes Marques, while the political nucleus closest to Bolsonaro has already started working on the names, in view of the next electoral rounds. In particular, for the 2026 presidential elections, the group already has four pre-candidates on the table: the governor of Parana, Ratinho Jr. (Psd-Pr), the governor of Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema (Novo-Mg), the governor of San Paolo, Tarcisio de Freitas (Republicans) and Senator Tereza Cristina (Pp-Ms), former Minister of Agriculture with Bolsonaro.
Tarcisio, governor of the richest and most populous state in the country, appears to be the favorite but it will be the administrative elections of 2024, according to analysts, that will bring out the name of the candidate for the presidential elections, against the Workers’ Party (PT) of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. In San Paolo Tarcisio and the Bolsonarists support the re-election of mayor Ricardo Nunes (Mdb-Sp). But if the current mayor were defeated by Guilherme Boulos (Psol-Sp) with the support of Lula, the candidacy of the governor of São Paulo would lose strength and Ratinho Jr. and Zema, if victorious in their states, would gain momentum. On the other hand, in an interview in recent days, Bolsonaro had not ruled out the possibility of a candidacy from his wife Michelle, also announcing that he was ready to drop his ace up his sleeve.