(Reuters): After losing the 2022 election, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was accused of planning a plot to topple the government and upend the nation's four-decade-old democracy. His already remote prospects of a political comeback are further complicated by this event.
Bolsonaro's followers staged disturbances in Brasilia in early 2023, a week after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office, as a result of a two-year police probe into a movement that disapproved of the election results.
Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet charged Bolsonaro with being the head of a "criminal organization" that sought to create a new political order, along with his former running mate, General Walter Braga Netto. Discussions about poisoning President Lula were purportedly part of the scheme.
34 people, including senior military figures including former Navy Commander Almir Garnier Santos, retired General Augusto Heleno, and Bolsonaro's former national security adviser, have been charged by authorities in connection with the scheme.
The charge sheet states that Bolsonaro led a network responsible for actions that threatened Brazil’s democratic order, driven by a desire to impose an authoritarian regime.
Bolsonaro’s legal team issued a statement on Tuesday, asserting that he never supported any attempt to dismantle Brazil’s democratic institutions or undermine the rule of law.
Legal experts predict that unless Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Court, who is presiding over the case, decides that Bolsonaro is a flight risk, he is unlikely to be jailed prior to his trial.
Similar claims were made against former US President Donald Trump for allegedly trying to rescind his loss in the 2020 election. However, that case was postponed several times before being dismissed when Trump won the 2024 U.S. election.
The charges against Bolsonaro follow a comprehensive federal police investigation into his involvement in the election-denial movement, which escalated into the violent protests in Brasilia in early 2023.
Many of Bolsonaro’s supporters admitted at the time that their goal was to create chaos, believing it would justify a military intervention in their favor.
Late last year, police arrested five individuals suspected of conspiring to assassinate Lula before he officially assumed office.
Prosecutors claim that Bolsonaro’s group also explored ways to poison Lula as part of their efforts to seize power.
Bolsonaro lost the 2022 presidential race by a narrow margin to Lula, a former trade union leader who previously served two terms as Brazil’s head of state.
The suspected coup attempt's perpetrators, according to investigators, had planned to create their own centralized authority and desired total power over all three departments of government.
The former army captain, Bolsonaro, has denied any misconduct and has dismissed the claims as an attack by his opponents with political motivations.
In a social media post on Tuesday, his son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, denounced the allegations as an "unconstitutional and immoral" attempt to advance the goals of Justice Alexandre de Moraes and President Lula.
This indictment is the first time Bolsonaro has been formally charged with a crime, despite the fact that he has faced multiple legal challenges about his behavior as president since losing the election.
Brazil’s Federal Electoral Court has already barred Bolsonaro from running for public office until 2030 in two previous rulings.
His defense team now has two weeks to respond before the Supreme Court decides whether to proceed with a potentially high-profile, televised trial.
Bolsonaro might spend at least 12 years in prison if convicted.
Vera Chemim, a constitutional lawyer and legal expert, thinks the Supreme Court will accept the allegations with overwhelming probability, but obtaining a conviction would require strong proof.
Braga Netto, Bolsonaro’s former running mate, was arrested two months ago for allegedly interfering in the investigations. His attorneys argued that his decades-long military service record is unblemished and rejected the accusations as fiction.
Former Navy chief Garnier Santos's attorney stated that they would not comment until they had read the indictment in its entirety. Requests for a statement from General Heleno, Bolsonaro's former security adviser, have not yet been answered.
A Supreme Court conviction could present a significant obstacle to Bolsonaro’s hopes of competing in the 2026 presidential election in a potential rematch against Lula.
A 2010 statute, which Bolsonaro himself backed, forbids those found guilty by an appeals court from running for public office.
Although Bolsonaro's supporters have a pessimistic view of the case, they want to mobilize political support and exert pressure on lawmakers and judges to allow him to return to politics.
Bolsonaro met with opposition senators just hours before the accusations were formally published to negotiate a plan that would shorten the duration of political bans for individuals convicted of electoral breaches.
The likelihood of the measure passing is still questionable, but conservative leaders see a chance to take advantage of the public's mounting discontent with Lula's government.
Only 24% of Brazilians support Lula's government, the lowest popularity rating of his three tenure as president, according to a Datafolha study released in February.
