BRASÍLIA – President Jair Bolsonaro defied a court order to appear for questioning yesterday about his attacks on Brazil’s electronic voting system, opening up another front in his clash with Brazil’s judicial branch.
A Supreme Court judge had ordered the far-right leader to appear at the headquarters of the federal police in Brasilia.
Investigators are trying to determine if Bolsonaro released confidential information with his repeated claims that Brazil’s electronic voting system is riddled with fraud.
With dozens of journalists waiting, Bolsonaro was a no-show yesterday.
Bolsonaro has long criticised electronic voting, introduced in Brazil in 1996.
He has stepped up his attacks in the build-up to elections in October of this year in which he is seeking re-election, insisting on “printable and auditable” paper ballots as a backstop to the electronic system.
A probe was opened in August of last year after a police report on a 2018 cyber attack against the Superior Electoral Tribunal showed up on social media platforms, courtesy of the president.
Bolsonaro displayed the documents during a live TV event and published them online as part of his campaign to show that electronic voting in Brazil cannot be trusted.
Those unfounded fraud claims fit it with Bolsonaro’s image as the so-called Donald Trump of the tropics.
Yesterday’s no-show incident opens up a new chapter in a clash between Bolsonaro and Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court judge who ordered him to appear yesterday and who has opened several other probes against him as well, said political analyst Creomar De Souza of the Dharma consulting firm.
In November, police questioned Bolsonaro as part of one of those investigations: his alleged interference with police looking into the business dealings of Bolsonaro relatives.
With Brazil hit very hard by the pandemic, Bolsonaro’s approval rating has never been lower and he is forecast to lose the October election to the leftist icon and former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. – AFP, January 29, 2022
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