The president of Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the body that runs and polices the country's elections, Justice Kassio Nunes Marques, on Tuesday ordered the removal from social media of a campaign speech in which President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, the Workers' Party candidate seeking reelection, suggested the "Electoral Tribunal" might attempt a "falcatrua", a Portuguese word for shady dealing. The ruling granted a request from the campaign of Flavio Bolsonaro of the PL party, Lula's rival in the presidential race, and comes five days before the first-round vote on Oct. 4.

Lula made the remark at a rally in Teresina, in the northeastern state of Piaui, on Sept. 9, according to news site G1 (the magazine VEJA records the event as Sept. 8). "May the Americans not come wanting to influence our elections; may the Electoral Tribunal not want to pull a scam, because we know what they are capable of," he said. According to G1, the president did not make clear whether he meant the TSE. In its filing, Bolsonaro's campaign argued that the statement went beyond criticism of the electoral judiciary and sought to discredit the integrity of the electoral process. G1 notes that the PL candidate has a history of attacks on Brazil's electronic voting machines.

What the ruling says

In Nunes Marques's reading, the statement is not criticism of the court's performance, "even if acidic or forceful", a category protected by case law. It amounts, he wrote, to an "implicit imputation of fraudulent conduct" to the body responsible for organizing the elections. He called the remark empty and devoid of data or information, and said Lula used his influence before the crowd at the rally "to spread distrust of the Electoral Judiciary". "There is no factual basis in it," the justice wrote.

"Since the Electoral Judiciary is responsible for the stages of voting, counting and tallying of votes, attributing to it the capacity to defraud the elections is equivalent to casting suspicion, without any factual support, on the reliability of those very stages."

The justice ordered the content removed from social networks and barred Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin from reposting it on any social network or electronic medium. The ruling also bans electronic billboards or any device that produces the visual effect of an outdoor ad, on pain of a daily fine. VEJA described the decision as provisional.

The "Flavio liar" ad stays up

In the same ruling, however, the court president denied, for now, the request against PT advertising that presents Bolsonaro as a liar, built from 13 clips such as "you were caught in a lie", "he lied", "he lies systematically" and "can you trust this guy?". The candidate's lawyers told the TSE that the ad "artificially creates a single narrative, with the purpose of presenting him as a liar and discrediting him before the electorate", and that the cuts do not allow viewers to identify the original context of the statements.

The justice found no proof that the content had been manipulated, taken out of context or offensive. The expressions have a "forceful and derogatory character", he wrote, but they "translate a critical judgment about the conduct and credibility of the candidate", which does not justify immediate removal in a summary review. He ordered only that the PT campaign stop airing the video until it fixes the identification of the responsible ticket, with the candidates' names displayed clearly and legibly. The case moved quickly: less than three weeks passed between the rally speech in Teresina and Tuesday's decision. Because the measures are provisional, the merits will be examined after the parties are formally heard, a stage known in Brazilian procedure as contraditorio; no date is set for a final ruling.