Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro of overseeing a failed conspiracy to overturn the 2022 Brazilian election in a coup plot that included disbanding courts, empowering the military and assassinating the President-elect.
Four of the five justices weighing the case voted to convict Bolsonaro and seven co-conspirators, including his running mate, defence minister and navy commander, in a forceful rebuke by one of the very institutions the men sought to overthrow.
Bolsonaro, 70, was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison, though his lawyers are likely to request house arrest because of his health problems.
The conviction is a landmark ruling for Latin America’s largest nation. In at least 15 coups and coup attempts with links to the military since Brazil overthrew its monarchy in 1889, Thursday marked the first time the leaders of one of those plots have been convicted.
It also could deal a definitive blow to one of Latin America’s most important and influential political figures. Bolsonaro galvanised a Right-wing movement that transformed Brazil into a more polarised and, in some ways, conservative nation — but his conviction now leaves the right without a clear leader.
At the same time, the ruling will very likely escalate the conflict between Brazil and the US. President Donald Trump had demanded that Brazil drop the charges against Bolsonaro, saying that, like him, the former Brazilian President was being politically persecuted for trying to reverse a rigged election.
The White House had sought to force Brazil to drop the case with steep tariffs, a trade investigation and severe sanctions against the Supreme Court justice leading it. Instead, several Brazilian justices criticised the US attempts to intervene as they voted to convict.
Asked about Bolsonaro’s conviction, Trump told reporters in Washington on Thursday that he was “very unhappy about it. I know President Bolsonaro” and like him, he said. “I think it’s a terrible thing, very terrible. I actually think it’s very bad for Brazil.”
Bolsonaro’s conviction relied upon troves of evidence showing that he and his inner circle had spent months undermining voters’ confidence in Brazil’s elections systems and then, after narrowly losing the 2022 vote, attempted to find ways to keep him in power.
The plans envisaged declaring a state of emergency that would have dissolved the Supreme Court, annulled the election result and given the military sweeping powers. It also included a plot to assassinate Bolsonaro’s opponent, now the President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Lula’s running mate; and Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice who had overseen the election and launched several investigations into Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro denied the charges and said he had no knowledge of an assassination plot. Instead, he testified that he sought ways within Brazil’s Constitution to correct what he claimed was a stolen election.
New York Times News Service