Former President Jair Bolsonaro speaks to the press.Ton Molina/Fotoarena via ZUMA
A simple majority of Brazil’s Supreme Court justices voted to convict former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro of leading a coup attempt following his electoral defeat in 2022. Bolsonaro, painted by prosecutors as the orchestrator of the conspiracy, was found guilty on five counts, including coup d’état and attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law.
“Brazil nearly went back to being a dictatorship that lasted 20 years because a criminal organization made up of a political group doesn’t know how to lose elections.”
The historic decision marks the climax of a high-profile trial that has put the nation on edge. This is the first time a former Brazilian president has stood accused of crimes against democracy. The seventy-year-old Bolsonaro, who was previously ruled ineligible to run for office until 2030, faces 43 years in prison, with sentencing scheduled for Friday. His defense has denied all the charges.
As of Thursday, three justices in the five-member panel had voted to convict Bolsonaro and seven co-defendants, which included a close aide, senior members of the military, former Justice and Defense ministers, and the one-time head of Brazil’s intelligence agency. (A dissenting judge, Luis Fux, voted to acquit Bolsonaro.) The prosecution accused the defendants of integrating an armed criminal organization with the goal of undermining democracy and preventing then-President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking office.
The conviction of Bolsonaro, a former army captain often described as the “Trump of the tropics,” is a monumental moment in the history of Brazil’s fraught democracy. It has only been 40 years since the country started the process of re-democratization after a two-decade military dictatorship that remains fresh in the public memory. Despite Brazil’s distinct context and past, observers and analysts have looked at the trial as a “test case[2]” for other countries experiencing anti-democratic waves and the rise of populist movements, as well as a point of comparison to the United States.
Nowhere in the world, Justice Cármen Lúcia warned upon casting the decisive third vote in favor of convicting the defendants, “is there absolute immunity against the virus of authoritarianism.” The trial, in her words, represented an “encounter of Brazil with its past, its present, and its future.”
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who presided over the trial, also referenced Brazil’s recent history. “Brazil nearly went back to being a dictatorship that lasted 20 years because a criminal organization made up of a political group doesn’t know how to lose elections,” he said[3]. “Because a criminal organization led by Jair Bolsonaro doesn’t understand that the alternation of power is a principle of republican democracy.”
When explaining his vote for a conviction, Justice Moraes argued there was no doubt that there had been a coup attempt, laying out what he called Bolsonaro’s “authoritarian project” to hold on to power despite the election results. He pointed to the prosecution’s case showing a sequence of actions going back to 2021 that included threats to the judiciary, efforts to sow doubt on the electoral process, and unsupported claims of election fraud—including a now-infamous meeting with foreign diplomats where Bolsonaro spread fake news about Brazil’s electronic voting system. Moraes also mentioned a chilling plot dubbed[4] “Operation Green and Yellow Dagger” to kidnap and assassinate his political rivals: Lula, vice-presidential running mate Geraldo Alckmin, and Justice Moraes himself.
The justice also cited, among other evidence, a coup-plotting draft decree that Bolsonaro would have discussed with commanders of the armed forces, who shot it down. The coordinated conspiracy didn’t cease after the 2022 presidential race, which Lula won by a very slim margin. Instead, prosecutors accused Bolsonaro of inciting his followers to rise up, leading[5] to thousands storming government buildings in Brasília on January 8, 2023, in an attack eerily evocative of the failed US Capitol insurrection.
Bolsonaro’s allies in Congress, as well as his son Eduardo Bolsonaro—who has been tirelessly lobbying[6] the US government and lawmakers on behalf of his father—are calling for amnesty for the former president and those convicted in connection with the violent riots. On Sunday, September 7, the day of Brazil’s Independence, Bolsonaro supporters, many carrying[7] American flags, took to the streets, urging[8] President Donald Trump to “save Brazil” and continue to escalate pressure on Brazilian authorities to quit what they see as a witch hunt against the one-time leader.
“Do people really believe that a tweet from an authority, from a foreign government, will change a Supreme Court ruling?” Flávio Dino, the second justice to vote in favor of a conviction, said, before alluding to tariffs and sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on Brazil and authorities like Justice Moraes. “Does anyone think that [losing access to] a credit card or Mickey Mouse will change the judgment?”