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Brazil’s supreme court made history when it found former President Jair Bolsonaro and seven co-defendants, mostly former top military officers, guilty last week of plotting a coup. In Brazil’s tumultuous political history, no coup leader had ever been brought to book for attempting to overthrow a government. The successful prosecution of the plot strengthens the foundations of its democracy.
With democracy under siege from authoritarian populists on several continents, the case is an important example of how a large developing nation can manage to uphold the rule of law in the face of strong pressure from an elected leader bent on subverting it.
The trial was not perfect. A hearing before the full 11-member supreme court would have given the verdict greater legitimacy. The landmark case was instead heard by a five-justice panel including current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s former personal lawyer, his former justice minister, and an intended victim of the plot. The defence complained that the speed of the proceedings prevented it from reviewing voluminous dumps of electronic evidence. A 429-page dissenting verdict from one judge, Luiz Fux, dismissed the charges and ruled the case should have been heard by a lower court.
Yet on the central charge of criminal conspiracy, a 4-1 majority judged the evidence compelling. Testimony from Bolsonaro’s army and air force chiefs showed just how close the former president came to his objective of subverting the popular will. Bolsonaro was also aware, prosecutors said, of a plot hatched by the military to assassinate election victor and current President Lula, his running mate and a supreme court judge.
Like his ally US President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro questioned his re-election defeat and was accused of encouraging an insurrection to overturn the will of the voters. He, however, has been punished for it.
Polls suggest that most Brazilians will accept the verdict, though a large minority will see the court’s decision as further evidence of an institution whose role is too big and whose decisions can be arbitrary. Many conservatives believe the court is biased against them, noting that it quashed Lula’s conviction corruption in 2021 and did not hear other cases against him. None of this, though, changes the gravity of Bolsonaro’s offences, nor the strength of the evidence offered.
Bolsonaro now faces up to 27 years in jail instead of another run at the presidency in elections next year. Aged 70 and in poor health after an attempted assassination in 2018, he could die a prisoner. Yet in Brazil’s volatile political world, where almost everything is up for negotiation, the case is not closed. The former president enjoys formidable support in congress, where allies are trying to force a vote on an amnesty bill to set him free. If a conservative wins next year’s election, Bolsonaro could be granted a pardon. A future rightwing president might stack the supreme court with allies or win enough senate seats to impeach justices.
Bolsonaro, meanwhile, is looking to the Trump administration for backing. Washington has already imposed 50 per cent tariffs on most Brazilian exports because of what the US president has termed a “witch-hunt” against his ally.
When under siege during the Bolsonaro presidency, Brazil’s democratic institutions could count on robust US support. The Biden administration sent numerous high-level public and private messages backing them. It is a sad reflection of the times that the Trump administration is now imposing sanctions on Brazil for successfully preventing a coup. For the sake of democracies everywhere, Bolsonaro’s convictions should stand.
