MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Tense moments mark ceremony at Brazil's TSE

Bolsonaro pretending not to hate De Moraes and Dilma not talking to Temer drew all eyes Tuesday at the TSE

Brazilian former Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva (PT), Dilma Rousseff (PT), Michel Temer (MDB), and José Sarney (MDB) Tuesday sat opposite the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and the members of the Supreme Federal Court as Alexandre De Moraes was sworn in Tuesday as the Superior Electoral Court's new Chief Justice.

Bolsonaro (PL) sat next to De Moraes, who has repeatedly issued rulings against him. However, they exchanged a few smiles in a protocolar atmosphere, although the magistrate would speak in favor of the electronic voting system, to which Bolsonaro would not applaud.

Lula and Temer also spoke a couple of times as if the former was trying to lure the MDB into supporting him in the October elections. But Rousseff, who became President with Temer as her Vice President, who was quick to capitalize on her impeachment, did not join the conversation:

“I would be grateful if Mr. Michel Temer would no longer seek to clean up his undisputed condition as a coup plotter using my undisputed personal and political honesty,” Rousseff wrote. He “doesn't fool anyone anymore,” she stressed. “It is precisely this quality that despises, rejects, and repudiates an evaluation that comes from someone who articulated one of the greatest political betrayals of recent times.” This is the first post-impeachment public meeting between Rousseff and Temer.

Bolsonaro also seized the day to criticize Lula and Rousseff on Twitter, saying their policies left “a devastated country.” His postings were released through his account while he was at the TSE ceremony.

“Lula and Dilma left to the Brazilians a devastated country, with 15 million unemployed, billion-dollar losses in state-owned companies, and unfinished works, in addition to the largest corruption scheme, the largest number of murders and the worst decade for the economy in our entire history,” he published. “Without a war and a pandemic, the PT delivered the country to the worst recession in our history.”

Due to ceremonial rules, Bolsonaro sat next to De Moraes and facing the PT leaders.

About 20 minutes later and while the ceremony was still going on, Lula's account replied that the choice was between him “and the candidate who imitated people dying without air in the pandemic.”