Bolsonaro says he was "stabbed in the back" after TSE makes him ineligible

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(Reuters) - Former President Jair Bolsonaro said on Friday (30) that he was "stabbed in the back" after the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) declared him ineligible for 8 years due to political abuse of power, using his position and the structure of the Presidency of the Republic to raise unfounded suspicions against the Brazilian electoral system during a meeting with ambassadors.

Clearly upset, Bolsonaro claimed that he always acted "within the four lines" of the Constitution and stated that his intention was simply to provide additional "layers of security" to the electoral process, emphasizing that he had been advocating for printed ballots since his time as a federal deputy.

"Today, we are experiencing an ineligibility. I did not want to become ineligible. In politics - this phrase is not mine - nobody kills, nobody dies," Bolsonaro told journalists in Belo Horizonte, recalling the assassination attempt he survived during the 2018 election campaign.

"I was stabbed in the stomach (in 2018), and today I was stabbed in the back for political abuse of power."

When asked about a potential successor in the national political arena, Bolsonaro said that there is currently no name and criticized the possibility of his adversaries winning the 2026 election by "WO," a term used in sports when a team wins because the opponent does not show up or presents with an insufficient number.

"I think Brazil is in mourning -- someone will be celebrating, obviously," the former president assessed.

"We will keep working... this is not the end of the right-wing in Brazil."

Bolsonaro expressed his belief that he was judged based on investigations that have not yet been concluded -- such as the case of the anti-democratic acts on January 8th -- rather than the meeting with ambassadors, which was the central focus of the case. The former president claimed that he had no involvement in the pro-Bolsonaro protests against the election results.

He also took the opportunity to accuse the TSE of working against him during the election period by prohibiting him from using the public structure of the Alvorada Palace for his traditional social media livestreams or from using images and videos from the official September 7th event, to which he had invited his supporters, in his electoral campaigns, for example.

On Friday, the TSE decided, by a vote of 5 to 2, to declare the former president ineligible in the case related to his meeting with ambassadors.

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