MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil's TSE fines Lula's team for speaking evil of Bolsonaro in 2022

Lula's campaign team had released a video on YouTube that was “certainly not beneficial to the candidate for re-election [Bolsonaro],” Justice Lucia wrote

Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) Monday imposed a R$ 250,000 (US$ 48,843.4) fine on President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his team for boosting propaganda against his rival Jair Bolsonaro during the 2022 campaign.

The TSE reached that decision after accepting Lula's defense's arguments that Bolsonaro had been a “liar, inhuman and incompetent” during the Covid-19 pandemic by calling the disease “a little flu” and advising against vaccination despite scientific experts' opinion. However, the TSE found that such statements had been “seriously offensive to the honor and image” of Bolsonaro. The TSE prohibits the promotion of negative content against opponents in campaigns, it was also explained.

In 2022, case rapporteur Justice Cármen Lúcia had already ordered that the video containing these allegations be removed from social media. On Monday, the other justices upheld her decision.

“Unlike this, the video published on YouTube, through boosting, conveys negative content, spreading a message that, regardless of whether it is true or not, is certainly not beneficial to the candidate for re-election [Bolsonaro],” Lucia wrote.

The case was heard in the TSE's virtual plenary between April 19 and 25. The score was 7-0 in favor of jointly condemning Lula and his coalition. Justices Nunes Marques, Raul Araújo, Isabel Gallotti, Floriano de Azevedo Marques, André Ramos Tavares, and TSE Chief Justice Alexandre De Moraes followed the rapporteur's vote.

Despite Monday's judiciary setback, Lula is far better off than Bolsonaro judiciarywise. After completing his term and losing his immunity, the retired Army captain faces numerous proceedings against him for which he lost the right to a public defender and needs to retain a private lawyer:

Falsehoods about the anti-covid vaccine: a parliamentary commission accused Bolsonaro of spreading false news about the Covid-19 vaccine. In October 2021, during a broadcast on social networks, he cited a misleading news item claiming that people vaccinated in the United Kingdom were developing acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). The Federal Police concluded that they fit the crime of public incitement to practice a crime. He is also suspected of having forged a vaccination certificate for himself and his family to travel to the United States.

Abuse of political power and misuse of public means: Bolsonaro faces trial before the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) for summoning foreign diplomats to the Planalto Palace in 2022 to persuade them of the insecurity of the Brazilian electoral system.

He is also under investigation for his alleged involvement in the masterminding of the Jan. 8, 2023, riots leading to the storming of the headquarters of all three branches of government in Brasilia to persuade the Armed Forces to stage a coup d'état against Lula, who by then had just been in office once week.

Bolsonaro has been ordered to surrender his passport and is unable to travel abroad pending the outcome of all these proceedings. Late last year, he attended Argentine President Javier Milei's inauguration in Buenos Aires.