Brazil: Bolsonaro could be banned from any political activity for eight years

Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court has given former President Jair Messias Bolsonaro three days to explain the contents of a draft decree found in the home of one of his former ministers, believed to prove he intended to stage a coup.

The deadline was set in a decision by Justice Benedito Gonçalves, who ordered the inclusion of the so-called “coup document” in an investigation into Bolsonaro alleged abuses of power during his October presidential election campaign.

The disputed text is a draft decree that would have allowed Bolsonaro to declare a state of emergency to intervene at the Supreme Electoral Court and the result of the October 30 elections in which he narrowly lost to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was defeated to turn back.

The document was found by federal police in the home of Anderson Torres, who was Bolsonaro’s Justice Minister and has been jailed since Saturday (14th) for alleged neglect of being responsible for security in Brasilia when thousands of Bolsonarists left the seat of the presidency, the Congress and the Supreme Court stormed.

Bolsonaro has also been included by the Supreme Court in the list of people under investigation for the January 8 violent events, as he is alleged to have mastermind the attempted coup.

The web of justice around the former president, who is currently in the United States and is suspected of inciting his supporters to storm and vandalize the seats of Parliament, the President and the Supreme Court on January 8, is being tightened.

Gonçalves also asked the Supreme Court to transmit to the electoral tribunal the document that would prove Bolsonaro’s alleged intention to stage a coup d’état, as well as any other possible evidence found in Torres’s home and used in the investigation into political abuse could be useful during the election campaign.

If Bolsonaro is found guilty of political abuse and the use of official media in support of his campaign, the electoral court can sentence him to a political disqualification of at least eight years.