IMAGE: AP
Jair Bolsonaro’s fall from the presidential palace to house arrest has now yielded its most extraordinary chapter. On September 11th Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court sentenced the former army captain and head of state to more than 27 years in prison for orchestrating a failed coup d’état. The judgement is a rare instance of a Latin American democracy holding a former leader criminally liable for attempting to destroy it.
Bolsonaro was convicted of leading a conspiracy to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after his 2022 electoral defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist veteran who returned to office after more than a decade. Prosecutors alleged that Bolsonaro’s plan included the use of state machinery to interfere in voting, the surveillance of political opponents and, most chillingly, the drafting of an assassination plot targeting Lula, his vice-president and the Supreme Court justice overseeing the case. The plot collapsed when Brazil’s top military commanders refused to lend their support.
The court found him guilty on five counts including participation in an armed criminal organisation and attempting to violently subvert the democratic order. The verdict divided public opinion and aggravated diplomatic tensions with the United States. Donald Trump, a close ally, dismissed the proceedings as a “witch-hunt”.
Despite a long history of coups, Brazil has never before prosecuted a former head of state for plotting one. In the past, transitions to democracy were brokered through compromise and amnesty. Bolsonaro’s trial marks a departure from that approach. It is a signal Brazilian institutions are prepared to confront the legacies of authoritarianism more directly. And that is no small act of defiance. ■
