BRASILIA, Brazil -- Ex-president Jair Bolsonaro faced an eight-year ban on running for office as Brazil's top electoral court began trying the far-right leader Thursday over his unproven allegations against the voting system during last year's elections.
The Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) is trying the divisive ex-army captain on charges he abused his office and misused state media when he convened foreign diplomats in July 2022 to warn of the supposed risk of fraud in the October elections, which he went on to lose to veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro, 68, skipped the court date in Brasilia to attend a series of events in the southern city of Porto Alegre, where he was welcomed at the airport by a boisterous crowd of dozens of cheering supporters, many clad in the yellow and green of Brazil's flag, which he has claimed as a symbol.
Insiders say Bolsonaro will almost certainly be found guilty, taking him out of the next presidential elections, in 2026.
His lawyer told journalists he would appeal to the Supreme Court if convicted.
The case revolves around a briefing at the presidential residence three months before the elections, at which Bolsonaro told representatives of the European Union, France, Spain and other countries that the electronic voting machines Brazil has used since 1996 compromised the "transparency" of the polls.
Armed with a PowerPoint presentation but no hard evidence, he spent nearly an hour making his case, broadcast live on public TV.
Prosecutor Paulo Gonet Branco said the event "was aimed at giving the false impression the voting process is obscure, rigged to manipulate the results and award a fraudulent victory to (his) adversary."
He linked the former president's statements to the riotous aftermath of the elections, when Bolsonaro supporters invaded the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court on January 8, a week after Lula's inauguration.
Lawyer rejects claims
After just over three hours of hearings -- at which lawyers for the prosecution, defense and the left-wing party that brought the case, the Democratic Labor Party (PDL) -- made their arguments, the court adjourned until Tuesday, when its seven judges will begin delivering their rulings one by one.
Bolsonaro reiterated Wednesday that he had done nothing wrong.
"There was no criticism or attack on the electoral system," he said.
His lawyer, Tarcisio Vieira, argued the same before the court, comparing the case to that of wrongly convicted French Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus in the late 19th century.
That case "became one of the biggest judicial mistakes in history," he said.
He urged the court not to do the same with Bolsonaro, denying he violated the law and rejecting efforts to link his statements to the January 8 riots.
Slew of probes
Both Bolsonaro's unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud and the January 8 riots drew widespread comparisons to his political role model, Donald Trump, and the latter's bid to hang onto power after his loss in the 2020 US presidential election.
Bolsonaro, who spent three months in the United States after his term was up, has kept an uncharacteristically low profile since returning to Brazil in March to serve as honorary president of his Liberal Party (PL).
He faces a raft of other legal woes, from five Supreme Court investigations that could send him to jail -- including over the January 8 attacks -- to police probes into allegations of a faked Covid-19 vaccination certificate and diamond jewelry snuck into the country from Saudi Arabia.
But the man dubbed the "Tropical Trump" remains a powerful force in Brazil, where conservative parties hold a strong majority in Congress.
Bolsonaro "has a large base," said political scientist Marco Antonio Teixeira, of the Getulio Vargas Foundation.
Even if convicted, "he'll act behind the scenes and use his vote-winning power and influence to help other candidates," he said.
The Lula administration has meanwhile kept largely quiet on Bolsonaro's case.
As if to underline that he had bigger things to worry about, Lula spent Thursday meeting with world leaders at a summit in Paris, before giving a speech on climate change to a cheering crowd in front of the Eiffel Tower at a concert headlined by Billie Eilish.