Jair Bolsonaro

Part II: The legacy of Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump

by Dave

This post will be more meaningful if Part 1 is read first.

Ex-President Jair Bolsonaro greatly admired Donald Trump, and his form of right wing populist politics. It was a very passionate love of country and religion, an emotional attachment that voters could easily embrace. Bolsonaro attacked the socialist views of Lula da Silva, comparing him to Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, who wrecked the economy of Venezuela and Cuba, respectively.

He continued his attack on the Federal Election court and the election in which he lost. While still in power, Bolsonaro met with foreign ambassadors in July 2022, in which he spread false information about Brazil’s electoral system. Thus he was laying the foundation to challenge the entire election process. The meeting was livestreamed by official television channels and on YouTube.

A lawsuit was filed by Brazil’s Demcratic Labor Party. On June 30, 2023, the federal election court barred Jair Bolsonaro from running for president until 2030. Bolsonaro plans to appeal the judgement. Per the CNN link:

Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who presided over the court, cast his vote last. “Let us reaffirm our faith in our democracy and the rule of law,” he said after voting in favor of the guilty verdict. Moraes added that with the vote Brazilian authorities would show they do not tolerate “criminal extremism attacking the powers of the state, fake news, disinformation to try to deceive voters.”

There are many other cases pending against Bolsonaro. Most recently has been the Saudi rolex watch scandal. The accusation is that Bolsonaro gave the watch to an aide to sell and then deposit the money back into his account. It is not a lot of money ($70,000) but the Superior Court has now permitted inspection of Jair Bolsonaro and Lt. Col. Mauro Cid bank accounts in the US on August 18, 2023.

This is a rapidly developing story, as on August 18, 2023, seven high-ranking military police officers were arrested in connection with the Jan. 8 attacks. I suspect more will follow, including possible connections between the violence on January 8, 2022 and ex-president Jair Bolsonaro. Also, there is considerable speculation in the media, that Bolsonaro and his son, Flavio were enriching themselves through government graft. It will be the court that have to decide whether guilt based on facts, not speculation in the media.

Link: ABC News: Brazil’s Bolsonaro accused by ex-aide’s lawyer of ordering sale of jewelry given as official gifts

What if Bolsonaro’s comments were not livestreamed and broadcast, and also captured on You Tube? Perhaps the Superior Court would have acted differently.

There is no equivalent in the US to the 7 member panel overseeing the election and corruption in Brazil. Some may consider it gives too much authority, as only a simple majority can deny a candidate from running for office. Our First Amendment rights are very broad, while a president is in office. However as Donald Trump has discovered, defamation lawsuits against an ex-president can be won as in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit.

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Trump at present has four criminal cases against him. The Federal January 6 case and Georgia case involve his direct involvement to interfere with the results of a fair election, before the election and afterwards, leading up to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. The classified documents case relate to actions after he left office on January 20, 2021. Trump will be formally arrested in the Georgia election interference case on August 24, 2023.

A commonality of the US and Brazilian system is, no matter how high or low a person’s social status, there is equal justice and accountability for all. We have no privilege class. The prisons of our country and Brazil, were not created to house the poor or illiterate, but those found guilty of crimes by a jury in court of law where the rights of the defendant are enforced. A second principle is that the electorate decides who will govern the country in free and fair elections. Every four years, in the US and Brazil, only the electorate who can be their president.

Both Bolsonaro and Trump have legal rights and can petition a higher court to appeal their sentences. This is another example of

I feel no matter, what occurs, their legacy will be that they truly believed that truth did not matter. Everything depended on the dissemination of false information via social media and cable stations to maintain their base.

Trump in particular has portrayed his legal problems on a corrupt legal system, but this is another lie. He is the cause of the four criminal indictments.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Ex-Presidents Trump and Bolsonaro: Part 1

by Dave

“You shall reap what you have sown” old proverb, meaning you will suffer the consequences of your actions.

When Donald Trump in Nov 2020 and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in October 2022 lost their bids for re-election, they refused to accept their loss. Both of them concocted lies which attacked the integrity of election. It was all very planned out and in both cases, within a few months, violence broke out in the capitals of their country. US Capitol attack occurred on January 6, 2021 and the federal buildings in Brasilia were attacked on January 8, 2022, encouraged by unfounded claims from the ex-Presidents.

But both Trump and Bolsonaro maintained a lie that the elections were rigged, and they were the legitimate winners of the election. Both perpetuated these lies by fabricating “evidence” of fraud. It is exactly what many of their supporters wanted to hear. Many people in the US and Brazil are in prison for the violence. Five people are dead as a result of the violent attack on the capital, and many police officers were injured as a result of the violence.

Trump schemed with other White House officials to have Mike Pence dismiss the results of the election in states where he lost by a narrow margin and prepared a slates of false electors. This is, in part, why he is facing charges of conspiracy in Georgia. We have the freedom of assembly and speech in the US, but when the communications are at the foundation of plans to break the law, then this becomes part of the crime.

At the local, state and federal level of government, violations of election laws can be investigated. Volunteers also act as observers and can report any violation. The courts heard more than 50 challenges from Trump’s team of lawyers. None of them were successful in changing the results of the election. On December 23, 2020, the US Attorney General, William Barr, announced that no fraud had been found that would change the results of the election. Similar conclusions were reached by the Director of Cyber Security, Chris Krebs, who was then fired by Trump.

In Brazil, just days prior to the election, Bolsonaro reduced fuel prices to gain favor with Brazilian truckers. On election day, truckers formed blockades to prevent voters from going to the polls in the Northeast region of Brazil, where the worker’s party with Lula Da Silva as the presidential candidate, was favored to win. The police set up checkpoints, causing more difficulties for voters. The federal justices which oversee the election process, voted to end the blockade and police checkpoints on election day. As a result, voters were delayed but not denied the opportunity to vote.

Link: AP Press Brazilian truckers protest Bolsonaro loss, block hundreds of roads

In Brazil, political parties have recourse in the judicial system (federal election court, headed by Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes) to hear their complaints of an unfair election and take appropriate actions. So Bolsonaro’s party presented to the court their arguments that the machines which tallied the votes were flawed and should be disregarded. The discrepancy was very minor, and did not affect the actual tally. The court quickly rejected the allegations of Bolsonaro’s party.

CNN Link: Brazilian court rejects election challenge from outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro

So, both Trump and Bolsonaro challenged the election results through the courts, but failed to show any convincing evidence of fraud. Trump should have conceded to Biden after the formal voting of electors on December 14, 2020. Bolsonaro should have conceded to Lula da Silva after the federal election court rejected the baseless claim of fraud on November 23, 2022.

Instead of recognizing the importance of election integrity and national unity, they continued their attack on the election which they clearly lost. The legal system has caught up with both leaders.

This will be discussed in Part 2 of this posting.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Jair Bolsonaro – frightening statements

by Dave

Jair Bolsonaro is President of Brazil, a country with 211 million residents. He is up for re-election in 2022. He is a right-wing populist, and in many ways similar to Donald Trump.

The norms of a working democracy are that the candidate enters an election to win the approval of the people and a willingness to accept the results, if he loses. Trump’s approach was that if he won, it showed he was the better candidate and if he lost, the election was rigged against him. Thus, he solidified his base against Democrats and the new president and in doing so, undermined the election in general. It is sadly all about fund raising, to maintain the base.

Similar to Trump, Bolsonaro claimed the electronic voting machines can’t be trusted. It’s all sounds very familiar. In the US, the lawyers who made the claims for Trump, namely Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, are facing serious civil lawsuits from the voting machine companies. Sidney Powell may be face disbarment in the states where these claims and others were made, and lacking any evidence.

These lies had consequences. Five people died on January 6, 2021 as the Capitol in Washington was taken over by rioters. It was a very sad day in our history. Since the day it was clear Trump had lost the election, he was making wild claims that the election was stolen, so storming the capitol was a normal reaction of a citizenry who thought their rights to free election was being taken from them. “Stop the Steal” wasn’t just political rhetoric, it was the prelude to a violent attack on our legislators and the vice president of the United States.


Bolsonaro is following closely in Trump’s footsteps. He stated there were only 3 outcomes of the election: He would be re-elected, arrested or killed. (see link below). Another words, if he loses the election, it is because the electoral system failed, and now his enemies would come after him.

“As president, Bolsonaro is allowed and expected to take part in public discussions,” Corbo said. “What he cannot do — and has been doing — is systematically attack the electoral system by which he was elected.” Dr. Corbo is a constitutional law professor in Brazil.

Sadly, I’ve seen this before, way before Trump. Angola’s very first election in 1992, was between the current President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and UNITA’s leader, Jonas Savimbi. The election was to be a triumph of democratic process, ending a decades long civil war, which killed 300,000 Angolans. To this day, I can recall the words of Savimbi’s press secretary, in a shrill voice, calling the election a total fraud and totally lacking in credibility. So, for those that believed the party’s lie, Dos Santos was not the elected candidate, he was not their president, and no one bore any allegiance to him. The election had not been rigged. The UN had monitored the election. Savimbi had enough military equipment and soldiers to re-ignite the civil war, and violence broke out in Luanda, the capital of Angola. The war ended in 2002 with the death of Savimbi.

What Trump was looking for, was a way to legitimize his claims, through Congress, the Justice Department and each state where the Democrats won by a narrow margin (Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan, to name a few) that the election results were false and he had won.

I am hoping that Brazilians deny Bolsonaro a second term, and are smart enough to see through his lies. If he’s the Brazilian Trump, then the next step will be to take whatever measures he can, to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election. I’m afraid the increase rhetoric can turn to violence as it did in the US. Or worse Angola.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Links:

CNN: Bolsonaro says he will either be arrested, killed or win Brazil’s next election

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/06/americas/bolsonaro-brazil-elections-intl-latam/index.html