Bolsonaro’s fear of prosecution driving efforts to undermine election process

When Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro used a speech to celebrate his party’s approval of his candidacy in October’s presidential election to inveigh against the country’s voting system no one was surprised.

Delivered to a half-empty sports arena, Sunday’s latest attack came less than a week after an unprecedented presentation to Brasília’s diplomatic corps in which the far-right leader railed against the country’s electronic voting machines and the judges that oversee them.

“The system is completely vulnerable,” he claimed, offering debunked conspiracy theories as evidence.

Bolsonaro’s long-running campaign to undermine the electoral process is intensifying as October’s vote approaches. His motive for doing so appears clear — he is widely expected to lose a clean race.

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In every poll he badly trails his main rival, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, though analysts say the race should tighten closer to polling day.

The president himself often sounds resigned to losing, claiming the electoral system is flawed, that he can only lose if cheated of victory and calling on supporters to arm themselves in defence of “liberty”. This has led to fears he is planning to imitate former US president Donald Trump and will refuse to concede defeat in October should he lose.

[ Brazil braced for violence ahead of October election ]

Bolsonaro has also given plenty of hints about why he appears so determined not to relinquish power, even if rejected at the ballot box. Several times in the last year he has speculated on the risk he could end up in prison once out of office. That is where many Brazilians would like to eventually see him. “Bolsonaro in Jail” is a frequent trending topic on local social media.

That would require him to lose first the high level of immunity provided by his office. The litany of alleged wrongdoing during his 3½ years in power have already produced at least 90 requests to the supreme court to investigate him as well as 145 impeachment motions tabled in congress. But Bolsonaro has been protected by his hand-picked chief federal prosecutor Augusto Aras who must analyse the filings made against his boss before the supreme court. Meanwhile, a pact with the most corrupt elements in congress, in which the president has turned over swathes of the federal budget to the legislature’s most unscrupulous operators, has seen the impeachment requests gather dust on the desk of Arthur Lira, the all-powerful head of the lower house.

Out of office though, Bolsonaro’s legal woes could significantly increase. “If he is re-elected there is minimum risk he will be prosecuted. But if he loses there is a reasonable chance that he will be convicted and so barred from holding office, even if it is unlikely he will be jailed,” says Helena Regina Lobo da Costa, professor of criminal law at the University of São Paulo.

The most immediate legal threat is that cases against Bolsonaro dating back to before he became president, and was suspended as a result of his taking office, resume, such as the one against him for telling Maria do Rosário, a fellow member of congress, he would not rape her because she did not deserve it. Bolsonaro might also be vulnerable to charges arising from his administration’s mishandling of the pandemic still not archived by Aras. Then there are also accusations of obstruction of justice in an attempt to derail an investigation into accusations of corruption against one of his sons, not to mention the ongoing investigations into corruption in the education ministry in which he has been cited as a participant.

Another sign that these potential legal woes lie behind the growing desperation of the president and his inner circle as the election draws closer came this week. Congressional allies of Bolsonaro were reportedly trying to revive a plan to make former presidents senators for life, thus guaranteeing them congressional immunity. The idea was quickly shot down and has almost no chance of advancing. But it does hint that even within Bolsonaro’s base there is a sense it is fear of future prosecution that is driving his campaign to undermine the electoral system.