Brazilian Police Uncover Bolsonaro’s Planned Coup

Evidence mounts that Brazil’s former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro was aware of and actively participated in a coup plot to remain in office indefinitely after his loss in the 2022 election. Brazil’s top public prosecutor will be waiting to issue any indictments until 2025 for former President Jair Bolsonaro, members of the Social Liberal Party (PSL), and military officers who allegedly planned a coup after his election defeat. General Prosecutor Paulo Gonet is expected to combine the findings of all three Federal Police investigations into Bolsonaro’s violations against Brazil’s democratic system into a single global indictment in the coming year.

In late November, the Brazilian Federal Police formally accused Bolsonaro and 36 members of his entourage of the crimes of attempted coup d’état, violent abolition of the democratic state of law, and participation in a criminal organization. Details of these accusations were outlined in an 884-page report that was handed over to both the Supreme Court and Prosecutor Gonet for review. According to the report, after current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won the election in October 2022, Bolsonaro plotted to overturn his defeat, along with dozens of ex-ministers and senior aides, including active military officers, in a conspiracy that may have planned for assassinations, police noted. According to Reuters, the conspirators were split up into groups and were allotted different tasks to complete. One group was tasked with propagating disinformation about the electoral process, a campaign Bolsonaro had been pushing since the previous year, claiming that voting machines had allowed Lula to skew the presidential vote. The exchanged text messages between Bolsonaro and his adherents suggest that the plan was supported by a significant proportion of Brazil’s armed forces, including certain generals who were allegedly waiting for Bolsonaro’s green light to begin the coup. 

Evangelical Christian followers of the former right-wing president were outraged by the list of 37 indicted persons, which included a Roman Catholic priest. They have referred to the police investigation as an attempt by Lula and Supreme Court members to disparage conservatives in the country. According to coverage by the RNS, Reverend José Eduardo de Oliveira e Silva, a Catholic priest who is a spiritual adviser to the Brazilian Union of Catholic Jurists, was allegedly assigned to the “judicial group.” The group was asked to establish a legal justification for a military intervention, making use of Article 142 of the Brazilian Constitution. The far right in Brazil frequently interprets this article as authorizing the military to step in during a constitutional crisis since it assigns them the duty of ensuring law and order. The nation’s high court decided in April that the military was not allowed to stage a coup as part of its duty.

A source at the prosecutor’s office, known as the PGR in Portuguese, said he expects the global indictment to happen only in 2025. Prosecutor Gonet is expected to take time to carefully analyze the documents of the three investigations that propose indicting dozens of people. “Gonet is very technical. In addition to the investigation itself, there is all the legal basis for the indictments to be analyzed. This will take time,” Brazilian officials told Reuters. Bolsonaro could face at least 11 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

In the January 8, 2023 riot, Bolsonaro’s supporters ransacked the Brazilian Supreme Court and the presidential palace in Brasilia, seeking to encourage intervention by the military that would remove Lula from office. Bolsonaro had left for the United States days before Lula’s inauguration on January 1, 2023 and stayed there three months, keeping a relatively low profile. The police report alleges he was seeking to avoid possible imprisonment related to the coup plot and awaiting the uprising that took place a week later. A Brazilian official relayed to AP News that a woman involved in the January attack received a 17-year prison sentence, and suggested that the former president is more likely to receive 15 years or more if convicted.

Bolsonaro has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of any plot to keep him in power or oust his leftist rival and successor Lula. Despite his growing legal troubles, Bolsonaro remains the central figure of a conservative movement driving Brazilian politics for the past six years. He has maintained that he will run as a candidate again in the 2026 presidential race. 

Abigail Emslander

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