Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) opens another investigation against Bolsonaro for abuse of power in the use of presidential palaces during the campaign.
Benedito Gonçalves claims that Bolsonaro used the Planalto and Alvorada palaces to carry out "ostentatious campaign events."
Reuters - The Inspector General of Electoral Justice, Benedito Gonçalves, has opened another investigation against former President Jair Bolsonaro for abuse of political power for using official palaces to promote campaign events during last year's election, in an investigation that could lead to his ineligibility.
The former president --who is in the United States and has not yet conceded defeat -- is the target of 16 lawsuits seeking to punish him for a series of actions prohibited by election law.
The fear that Bolsonaro could become ineligible, which would prevent him from running in the 2026 elections, is one of the main concerns of his party, the PL, according to two sources within the party.
The minister of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) accepted a request from the coalition that elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, which alleged that Bolsonaro used palaces as a "meeting stage" with governors, federal deputies, and celebrities to boost his reelection campaign.
The then-president held meetings in the palaces with four governors re-elected in the first round, six state governors and parliamentarians, and had lunch with country music artists and singers, occasions in which interviews were also granted with declarations of support for Bolsonaro's re-election.
According to Gonçalves, after analyzing the material, spaces designated for presidential interviews, in the performance of his duties as head of the Executive branch, were used as a stage for "ostentatious campaign acts, in which an image of political strength for Jair Bolsonaro's candidacy was sought."
The TSE minister said that the electoral nature of the meeting is "undeniable." "Thus, it is clear that the narrative of the initial petition, in theory, is capable of fitting the typical figure of abuse of political power, with sufficient elements to authorize the investigation of the facts and their seriousness in the context of the 2022 elections," he said in a ruling on Thursday.
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