Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s right-wing former president, has been banned from holding office for the next eight years. Brazil’s top elections court on Friday found that Bolsonaro had abused his power by repeatedly lying about the integrity of the country’s 2022 elections, in which former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula, defeated him.
The Superior Electoral Court’s seven-member panel voted 5-2 to restrict Bolsonaro from office. Bolsonaro has the option to appeal that decision in the nation’s highest court — a move he’ll likely make. But Bolsonaro is no longer an elected official, and as a private citizen he faces a number of criminal investigations, including a probe into whether he meddled with the federal police force to protect his sons from corruption investigations; a probe into a fake news factory allegedly run through the former president’s office; and spreading disinformation about Brazil’s electoral system.
After losing to Lula in an October 2022 runoff, Bolsonaro refused to concede the election and did not attend his successor’s inauguration, opting instead to head to Florida, much like his American analogue former President Donald Trump. A week after the transition, on January 8, Bolsonaro supporters stormed federal buildings in the capital of Brasilia, briefly taking over the Supreme Court and Congress and breaching the presidential palace.
Though the decision against Bolsonaro has seemingly stifled his political career, he still has some influence; in addition to the thousands of supporters who stormed Brasilia in his name, the former president has allies — including his son Eduardo — in congress, and he has hinted that his wife Michelle may run for president in 2026.
The court’s decision, too, is not without its complications. Though Brazil does have an independent judiciary, both the electoral court and the Supreme Court face allegations that they have overstepped their bounds, specifically the Supreme Court…
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