Flávio Bolsonaro's PL membership is taken back by the TSE after appearing as a member of Missão

The president of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), minister Kassio Nunes Marques, responded to the request of Flávio's lawyers and reestablished, in a decision this afternoon, the presidential candidate's original affiliation with the PL, releasing the process for registering the candidacy with the Electoral Court.

In the decision, the minister asks the court to preserve access data to the membership system and forwards the case to the Federal Police so that they can launch an investigation to determine who was responsible for the fraudulent membership.

Earlier, Flávio's lawyers had contacted the TSE with a request for Flávio's membership of the PL, made on November 30, 2022, to be resumed. With the request fulfilled, the expectation is that registration will take place this Thursday.

In a statement, the electoral court said that the episode was not the result of hacking of the party membership system, but rather the misuse of the tool by someone who has party credentials to form memberships. Missão said it was a victim of fraudulent membership.

According to lawyer and former minister Maria Claudia Bucchianeri, who represents Flávio, membership in absentia is a crime. She was at the TSE headquarters in Brasília, where she spoke personally with Kassio.

"They defrauded my party membership. The system will try everything to stop me, but it won't succeed, because God is in charge", said the senator in a video published on his networks.

Data from the TSE show that Flávio Bolsonaro was a member of Missão on Wednesday (12), which automatically cancels his membership of the PL on the same date.

Currently, a party representative with a password to access the Electoral Court's membership system, which requires two-factor authentication, can join a person using only some personal data, such as voter registration number, date of birth and parents' names - data known in Flávio's case.

The electoral law requires, however, that candidates be regularly affiliated with the party for which they are going to compete at least six months before the election and, therefore, affiliation with Missão prevented Flávio's candidacy from being accepted by the TSE.

Missão denied being responsible for Flávio's affiliation and said it had informed the senator's team about the fraud.

"Our system, upon noticing the fraud, attempted to cancel the membership on the same day, an action that was rejected by the TSE. Flávio's office was informed of this attempted membership since the 2nd of this month. It appears in our system that the emails sent were opened, but were not responded to", he says in a note.

The caption also states that it will call the Federal Police and make data available, such as logins and IP, so that those responsible for the crime are punished. "The Missão party reaffirms that it does not condone fraudulent affiliations and vehemently repudiates episodes of this nature", the note also says.

Missão also states that it has no interest in joining Flávio, "a parliamentarian who, in addition to ideological misalignment, appears in accusations and suspicions of involvement in corruption schemes". The deadline for registration ends at 7pm on Saturday (15th). The election campaign officially begins the next day, on August 16th.

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