MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolsonaro indicted for 2014 remarks against PT congresswoman

Bolsonaro cried political persecution

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been indicted for incitement to rape by a Federal District Court in connection with a speech he delivered before the Lower House in December 2014, when he was a Congressman, Agencia Brasil reported in Brasilia Tuesday.

Bolsonaro was charged by the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) as well as by the victim of his derogatory remarks, Rio Grande do Sul Congresswoman Maria do Rosário of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's Workers' Party (PT).

At the time, Bolsonaro said that the only reason why he would not rape Maria do Rosário was because “she didn't deserve it.”

The process against Bolsonaro originally undertaken by the Supreme Federal Court (STF) was halted after he became head of state in 2019, but with the end of his mandate and hence of his immunity, the case went to a lower court. The decision to resume proceedings against Bolsonaro was signed on August 24 and made public Tuesday.

“One more: now in fact from 2014. The persecution never stops! We have always defended harsher punishment for those who commit this type of crime and precisely those who defend the criminal now become the ”victim“. I've been insulted, I defend myself and once again the order of the facts is changed to confirm yet another political persecution known to all!” Boolsonaro said Tuesday on social media.

Meanwhile, Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) ruled Tuesday in favor of excluding the Armed Forces from the election monitoring group. The military will also no longer take part in the election's transparency commission, which had been approved in 2021 by then-Chief Justice Edson Fachin.

The proposed change was made by current Chief Justice Alexandre De Moraes, who argued that the participation of the Armed Forces in overseeing the 2022 elections proved to be “incompatible” with the military's legal attributions. “This expansion of the Armed Forces in the list of supervisory entities has not proven to be compatible with their constitutional functions, nor reasonable or efficient,” he said.

In his view, the Armed Forces will continue to assist the Electoral Justice in the transportation of electronic ballot boxes and in the security of voters and polling stations.

In the same decision, the TSE also removed the Federal Supreme Court (STF) from the supervisory bodies. Three Supreme Court justices are also part of the TSE and, in addition, the STF functions as a court of appeals for decisions by the Electoral Justice.

Under President Bolsonaro, who was running for re-election, relations between the TSE and the Armed Forces were marked by several frictions. In one of the episodes, in a report sent to the electoral court, the Ministry of Defense stated that the military had not ruled out the possibility of fraud in the electronic ballot boxes.

The monitoring group is made up of political parties and representatives of the Public Prosecutor's Office, the National Congress, the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU), the Federal Police, and the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU), among other entities.

(Source: Agencia Brasil)