Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the country’s highest electoral court, began the trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday in the nation’s capital of Brazilia. According to the news agency AFP, Bolsonaro was accused of abusing political power and making false statements during last year’s election.
If found guilty in the trial, Bolsonaro would be at risk of losing his right to run for office for eight years. The charges stem from a meeting Bolsonaro held with foreign diplomats in July of 2022, where he is alleged to have knowingly spread false information about Brazil’s voting machines. Bolsonaro lost last year’s election to left-wing candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The court heard more than three hours of hearings on Thursday, and the court’s seven judges will release their individual rulings on June 27th. Bolsonaro wasn’t present at the trial on Thursday, instead, he attended a series of events in the southern city of Porto Alegre where he was welcomed by dozens of supporters at the airport.
If convicted, Bolsonaro would be barred from running in the next presidential election in 2026. Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Tarcisio Vieira, told the press that if convicted he would appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
During the proceedings, Vieira compared Bolsonaro’s case to that of Alfred Dreyfus. It was a reference to the 19th-century Dreyfus Affair, in which a French-Jewish military officer was wrongly convicted of treason. Vieira called on the court not to make the same mistake and denied that the former president had violated any laws during the election.