Bolsonaro’s bid to regain Brazil’s presidency may end in prison
On November 21st Brazilian police formally accused Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former far-right president, and 36 others of attempting to prevent the country’s elected government from taking office in late 2022. It was the third time Brazil’s federal police recommended criminal charges against the ex-president, but these accusations are by far the most serious. They sharply increase the likelihood that Mr Bolsonaro will spend time in jail. The former president denies all charges and claims he is being politically persecuted.
This is not how Mr Bolsonaro (pictured) expected his November to pan out. After his misleadingly named Liberal Party won big in Brazil’s local elections in October, he triumphantly proclaimed that he would be the candidate of the right in 2026, when Brazil will hold presidential elections. More good news arrived with the re-election of Mr Bolsonaro’s idol, Donald Trump, as president of the United States. Mr Bolsonaro seems to have taken this as a harbinger of his own return to power. “May Trump’s victory inspire Brazil to follow the same path,” he posted on X.
Not likely, it seems, if Mr Bolsonaro is involved. Brazil’s top federal prosecutor will now review the police report which alleges Mr Bolsonaro’s involvement in an attempted coup, and decide whether to pursue charges. Mr Bolsonaro could be tried next year for alleged crimes which carry a maximum prison sentence of 28 years.
The police report describes Mr Bolsonaro’s efforts to stay in power. In the months running up to the election, the former president and his allies repeatedly claimed that voting machines could be rigged. The report claims that Alexandre Ramagem, the head of the national intelligence agency and a confidant of Mr Bolsonaro’s, directed the agency to spy on political enemies, and to produce false reports discrediting the electoral process. After losing the election, Mr Bolsonaro became desperate. The report alleges that on December 7th 2022 he called the heads of the navy, army and air force and presented them with a decree declaring a state of emergency and giving him powers to call a new election. The head of the navy agreed to go along with it—the others did not.
The most damning part of the report alleges that after Mr Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat, his associates plotted to murder Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula), who was then Brazil’s president-elect, his running mate Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes. According to the report, police obtained material about the plot from the devices of Mauro Cid, Mr Bolsonaro’s personal aide, and General Mário Fernandes, a deputy minister in the Bolsonaro government.
The report claims that Mr Fernandes used a printer in the presidential palace to print a plan for the assassination plot, including details of the weapons to be used. The report also alleges that Mr Cid and others started monitoring Lula and Mr Moraes’s movements after a meeting on November 12th 2022 at the house of Walter Braga Netto, who had been Mr Bolsonaro’s running-mate. The report says the police found documents owned by Mr Fernandes outlining how a “crisis cabinet”, co-led by Mr Braga Netto, was to be set up after the assassinations had been carried out.
No assassinations ever happened. On January 8th, 2023, a week after Lula was inaugurated, Bolsonarista zealots attacked Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace. Since then, the report alleges, Mr Bolsonaro and his allies have tried to put pressure on witnesses involved in the case, to prevent them from dishing dirt. A probable target is Mr Cid, who was already in trouble over Mr Bolsonaro’s first two indictments (for alleged embezzlement and forging covid-vaccine certificates). When police found the material on his phone they threatened to cancel an agreed plea deal because he had not mentioned the assassination plot. Mr Cid now appears to be working with the police in order to maintain his plea bargain.
The indictment has galvanised the left. “The chances are very high” that Mr Bolsonaro now goes to jail, according to Marco Aurélio de Carvalho of Grupo Prerrogativas, a left-leaning legal association. He calls Mr Bolsonaro “the intellectual author” of the coup. “His prison sentence is a question of when, not if.”
Yet even if Mr Bolsonaro does go to jail, it may not end his involvement in politics. Right-wing hopefuls for the presidential election in 2026 have minimised the accusations, wooing his voters. One of the most popular right-wing politicians after Mr Bolsonaro, Tarcísio de Freitas, the governor of São Paulo state, wrote on X that “there is a widespread narrative against President Bolsonaro that lacks evidence”. Some supporters believe that deeper legal trouble could turn Mr Bolsonaro into a martyr. Sóstenes Cavalcante, a federal Congressman for Mr Bolsonaro’s party, puts it more succinctly: “The more persecution there is, the stronger Bolsonaro and the right become.” ■
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