For Brazil’s Lula da Silva, the election victory over President Bolsonaro is just the beginning. Now the president-elect, himself a former president, wants to make sure that his right-wing opponent is ineligible for another presidential run. 

Mr. da Silva’s Workers’ Party will file two electoral judicial investigations in court that, if successful, would bar Mr. Bolsonaro from running in future elections. The filings allege that the right-winger abused his political and economic powers during his presidency and in the recent campaign. 

This strategy echoes a campaign by Democrats in the United States to try to get President Trump and others implicated in the events of January 6, 2021, disqualified from holding public office. In the United States, these efforts cite the 14th Amendment, which bars anyone who participated in an insurrection against the government. 

In Mr. da Silva’s case, his party will, according to local press, file the complaints this week with the superior electoral court. This is occurring at a time that Messrs. da Silva and Bolsonaro are expected to begin the transition process at Brasilia, pending the January 1 inauguration.

Mr. da Silva’s court filings may “threaten a peaceful transition,” the director of the American Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Ryan Berg, said. It would put into question Mr. da Silva’s intentions, as repeatedly expressed during the campaign, to unite the country, Mr. Berg told the Sun. 

“These two judicial actions give us insight into the fact that Lula won’t be aiming to unite Brazilians — or at least reach out to Bolsonaro supporters,” he added.

The court filings cite statements by  Mr. Bolsonaro raising questions about election integrity and casting doubt on the nation’s electronic voting system. They also detail roadblocks by Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters, which lasted for several days following the October 31 election, and the support of the protest expressed by top political aides to the outgoing president. 

According to Mr. Berg, in Brazil one is “eligible” to run for office unless he or she has committed a crime that would hamper the candidate’s ability to govern. For three years, Mr. da Silva was considered ineligible for the presidency following his conviction for money laundering in a case known as “Operation Car Wash.” He was sentenced to a 12-year prison term. 

However, Brazil’s supreme court annulled the conviction last year after determining that the judge who presided over the case, Sergio Moro, was biased and abused Mr. da Silva’s right to a fair trial. While it didn’t exonerate Mr. da Silva, the court’s annulment paved the way to his presidential campaign. 

Once Mr. Bolsonaro leaves the presidency, he will become the target of the supreme federal court, the superior electoral court, and Mr. da Silva. On January 1 they “will start investigations against Bolsonaro” that could make him “ineligible for the next presidential elections,” a professor of international relations at the Federal University of San Pablo, Regiane Nitsch Bressan, told the Sun.

In addition, Ms. Nitsch Bressan says that Mr. da Silva will attempt to dismantle Mr. Bolsonaro’s wave of supporters. “Mr. Bolsonaro is no longer president,” Ms. Nitsch Bressan says. But conservative support of Mr. Bolsonaro is “still present in the population.”

Since the election results were announced, Brazil’s electoral courts have banned from social media platforms several pro-Bolsonaro supporters of protests against Mr. da Silva, according to local media. Among those who were banned is a member of the chamber of deputies, Carla Zambelli, who sought to “disrupt the electoral process,” according to the electoral judges.  

Mr. da Silva has also announced that he will “demilitarize” the federal public administration, by removing government officials who are linked to Mr. Bolsonaro, local media reported.

“We are going to have to start the government knowing that we are going to have to remove almost 8,000 people from the military who are in office, people who have not taken public exams,” Mr. da Silva said in April.

When Mr. Bolsonaro took office in 2019, he removed members of the Workers’ Party who held positions of authority in the government. 

Mr. da Silva is returning to office for a third term after winning in the tightest election in three decades against Mr. Bolsonaro. Because the Workers’ Party did not receive as much support as it had expected, Mr. da Silva will have to govern with a congress dominated by conservatives, as well as dealing with right-wing officials who govern Brazil’s top states.