After his defeat in the elections, the still president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, will have to deal with the consequences of the investigations he has open in the Supreme Court, at the same time as he tries to establish himself as a reliable leader of the right wing with a view to possible electoral disputes in the future.
Bolsonaro has up to five cases pending in the Supreme Court, most of them in the hands of Judge Alexandre de Moraes, with whom he has had a complicated relationship since practically the beginning of a term about to expire.
The magistrate has centralized most of the cases against Bolsonaro in the investigation of digital militias, which the far-right leader has allegedly used to spread rumors, attacks and disinformation through social networks against the country’s democratic and electoral institutions.
His participation in acts considered anti-democratic in 2020, unfounded attacks on electronic ballot boxes, as well as the leak of a case of a computer attack on the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) and the dissemination of disinformation about coronavirus vaccines, are all the cases against Bolsonaro that De Moraes has on his hands at the moment.
In at least two of these cases, the Federal Police indicated that Bolsonaro may have incurred in a crime when he spread disinformation about the electoral system and leaked a computer attack to the TSE in June 2021 through an intervention in social networks.
According to the Police investigation, that live appearance of Bolsonaro «was a previously structured event in order to defend a conspiracy theory that its disseminators already knew lacked consistency», recalls the newspaper ‘Folha de Sao Paulo’.
The investigation into the so-called digital militias has its origin in a first one that was opened against Bolsonaro for his participation in the multitudinous protests that were held for several months in mid-2020 to protest against the restrictions of the coronavirus, which soon derived in attacks on institutions and in requests for a military intervention.
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro has secluded himself in the Alvorada Palace and has hardly been seen after the elections that gave Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva the victory, beyond his belated speech acknowledging in his own way his defeat and asking his followers to lift the road blockades.
Those close to him have explained that his agenda of events and appearances is empty as a consequence of the exhaustion of the hectic electoral process of the last month. Thus, Bolsonaro has not been seen even in his intervention every Thursday in social networks, nor talking with the unconditional supporters who every day wait for him in front of the gates of the Planalto or the Alvorada.
