Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) ruled this Friday that former president Jair Bolsonaro will not be able to stand for election until 2030, when he will be 75 years old.

It was the vote of Judge Cármen Lúcia that dictated the decision, who appealed Bolsonaro's conviction for abuse of political power and misuse of the media.

It's a historic decision. He becomes the first former Brazilian head of state to have his political rights withdrawn by a decision of the highest court of electoral justice.

Thus, the trial, which began on June 22, ended this Thursday with five TSE judges voting for Bolsonaro's ineligibility and two voting against.

It should be noted that the former President can still appeal against the sentence to both the TSE and the Federal Supreme Court (STF). In fact, defense lawyer Tarcísio Vieira de Carvalho Neto has already announced that he will appeal to the STF.

The deadline to appeal is three days, but with the higher courts closing in July, Bolsonaro's team will have until the beginning of August to prepare the appeal.

A precautionary measure is also being considered so that Bolsonaro can run in the 2024 municipal elections, if he so wishes, the lawyer said.

It should also be remembered that on the second day of the trial, Judge Benedito Gonçalves ruled that Bolsonaro committed abuse of political power and misuse of the media during a meeting that the then Brazilian head of state organized, in the middle of the election campaign, with foreign ambassadors at the Alvorada Palace, the president's official home in Brasilia, on July 18, 2022.

At this meeting, which was broadcast on state television TV Brasil and on social networks, the then President launched several unfounded attacks on the reliability of the electoral process and, more precisely, of the electronic ballot boxes, used since 1996 and validated by several international bodies, and the same ones that elected him to several terms as a federal deputy and as president.

Bolsonaro, in front of around 40 ambassadors from various countries, including Portugal, said, without substantiation, that the system could be subject to fraud and would not be auditable, insinuated that a company was counting the votes and not the TSE and also claimed, without providing any evidence, that a hacker had had access to "everything inside the TSE".

"The meeting had an electoral purpose, aiming to influence the electorate and national and international public opinion with the use of the public structure and the prerogatives of the office of President of the Republic," said the reporting judge.

The judge rejected Bolsonaro's defense's request to remove from the case file the so-called 'coup draft', a decree that would aim to reverse the election result by promoting an intervention in the electoral court that was found at the home of former Justice Minister Anderson Torres during an operation for alleged collusion during the attacks by Bolsonaro's followers on the three branches of government on the Esplanade of the Ministries on January 8 this year.

However, Bolsonaro has more than a dozen lawsuits pending before the TSE, including verbal attacks on the electoral system and use of the public machine for his own benefit, which could cause him to lose his political rights.

The former head of state, who was defeated in the October elections and lost his right to immunity, still has at least five investigations before the Supreme Court that could lead to his arrest. (NM)