{"id":38817,"date":"2025-02-22T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=38817"},"modified":"2025-02-24T05:39:58","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T05:39:58","slug":"brazil-coup-charges-could-end-bolsonaros-political-career-%e2%88%92-but-they-wont-extinguish-bolsonarismo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/brazil-coup-charges-could-end-bolsonaros-political-career-%e2%88%92-but-they-wont-extinguish-bolsonarismo\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil coup charges could end Bolsonaro\u2019s political career \u2212 but they won\u2019t extinguish Bolsonarismo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anthony Pereira<\/a>, Florida International University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brazilian politics are getting more dramatic again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South American country\u2019s attorney general filed five criminal charges<\/a> against former President Jair Bolsonaro and 33 others in its Supreme Court on Feb. 18, 2025, detonating political shock waves. The charges include plotting a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat to prevent Lu\u00edz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva\u2019s presidency. The other defendants include several former prominent officials, including a former spy chief, defense minister, national security adviser and Bolsonaro\u2019s running mate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lula took office in Brazil for a third time<\/a> in January 2023, after he defeated Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential election. Bolsonaro, a right-wing politician allied with U.S. President Donald Trump, had served the previous four-year term. Bolsonaro and his codefendants are also charged with trying to poison Lula and assassinate his vice presidential running mate, Geraldo Alckmin, and Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes<\/a>; participating in an armed criminal organization; and seeking to violently overthrow the democratic rule of law. He denies doing anything wrong<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a professor of Brazilian politics<\/a>, I believe that Bolsonaro\u2019s legal troubles threaten to definitively end his political career. There\u2019s also a possibility that the 69-year-old former president will be sentenced to prison. But, at the same time, the charges could also galvanize Bolsonaro\u2019s base \u2013 playing into a narrative that sees the right-wing leader as stymied, unfairly, by the government he used to run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No sash passed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bolsonaro\u2019s behavior before, during and after his second presidential campaign was unusual for any president seeking another term. He claimed, when he was still in office, that Brazil\u2019s electronic voting system<\/a> was not secure and predicted that fraud might crop up in the 2022 elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although he never produced any evidence to support this claim, he promoted it on social media<\/a>, fostering skepticism about the election among some voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolsonaro never formally conceded his narrow electoral defeat to Lula in October 2022, insinuating that instead the election had been stolen<\/a>. In 2023, Brazil\u2019s Supreme Electoral Court ruled that he had abused his power and banned him from running<\/a> for political office again for the next eight years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of attending Lula\u2019s inauguration on Jan. 1, 2023, where he would have been expected to participate in the traditional passing of the sash from the incumbent to the incoming president, Bolsonaro flew to Orlando, Florida<\/a>, on Dec. 30, 2022. He stayed in Kissimmee, Florida, for the next three months<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That meant Bolsonaro was not in Brazil when thousands of his supporters rampaged through and vandalized three government buildings in Bras\u00edlia on Jan. 8, 2023. The incident was strikingly similar to Trump supporters\u2019 assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new charges accuse<\/a> Bolsonaro of taking part in a conspiracy to delegitimize the elections. The indictment also alleges that after the results were announced, Bolsonaro and the other defendants encouraged protests and urged the armed forces to intervene, declare a state of siege and prevent the peaceful transition of power from Bolsonaro to Lula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Man
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro can still draw crowds of supporters, as happened on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro on April 21, 2024. Buda Mendes\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Possibility of prison<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The evidence in this indictment is based, in part, on plea-bargained testimony<\/a> by one of the alleged conspirators, the former presidential adviser and army Lt. Col. Mauro Cid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attorney general has also accused Bolsonaro and his associates of being linked to businessmen who paid for buses to take Bolsonaro supporters to Bras\u00edlia<\/a> so they could participate in the Jan. 8 attacks<\/a>, which caused damage estimated at 20 million Brazilian reais (US$3.5 million)<\/a>. And the indictment alleges that the coup plot failed because the commanders of Brazil\u2019s army and air force refused to support the conspiracy, although the commander of the navy did, which explains why he was named as a defendant<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court accepts the charges, which seems likely, the legal battle will begin. If Bolsonaro is convicted, he could go to prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolsonaro\u2019s defense team, for its part, says that the charges are \u201cinept\u201d and unconvincing. His lawyers expressed confidence that they could win the case<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Man
President Lula, wearing a hat, walks alongside Brazil\u2019s first lady, Rosangela Janja da Silva, in a pink suit, during a rally in Brasilia on Jan. 8, 2025 \u2013 two years after supporters of his predecessor staged a failed coup attempt. Claudio Reis\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Narrow path<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bolsonaro and his supporters have long criticized Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court, arguing that it has exceeded its constitutional powers<\/a> and become a judicial \u201cdictatorship.\u201d They have also pushed for Congress to grant amnesty to everyone who took part in or helped carry out the Jan. 8 attacks<\/a>, including Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To date, Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court has convicted 371 people for participating in the attacks<\/a>. Those convicted have received prison sentences of between three and 17 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike in the United States, however, there has been a broad consensus in Brazil that the attacks were illegitimate and unacceptable<\/a>. This consensus includes many lawmakers on the right and center-right in Brazil\u2019s Congress, as well as in state and local governments<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, although the example of Donald Trump returning to the presidency and pardoning the participants in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol inspires Bolsonaro\u2019s supporters, his path to achieving a similar result is narrower than was Trump\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Trump\u2019s media company, which owns Truth Social and Rumble, sued Moraes, the judge Bolsonaro is accused of plotting to kill, for ordering the suspension of social media accounts and thereby undermining the First Amendment rights of U.S. citizens. The case was filed in federal court in Tampa<\/a>, Florida, on Feb. 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any trial of Bolsonaro and the other alleged coup plotters could spark a political struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brazil\u2019s right wing is currently divided between advocates of hard-line Bolsonarismo \u2013 a disruptive ideology that advocates social conservatism, a lightly regulated economy, militarism and a strong executive branch \u2013 and a more pragmatic conservatism that works within the conventional rules of politics and is mainly focused on patronage and the management of the spoils of office<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should Bolsonaro and his fellow defendants be tried in the Supreme Court, those hard-liners could be mobilized and energized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They would see the trial as the political establishment\u2019s persecution of their political hero. And a struggle to find Bolsanaro\u2019s successor, most likely between his son Eduardo<\/a> and the former president\u2019s wife, Michelle<\/a>, would ensue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The successor would claim the mantle of opposition to Lula, who is eligible to seek a fourth presidential term and claims to want to run for reelection in 2026 \u2013 when he would be about to celebrate his 81st birthday<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

High stakes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are, to be sure, some Brazilian politicians who are more moderate than Bolsonaro and would also like to run against Lula next time. They would bring much less baggage to that presidential race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their candidacies might offer a possible return to the relative political stability Brazil had experienced for almost two decades before 2013, when the main dividing line in Brazilian politics was between coalitions led by the center-right Social Democratic Party and the center-left Workers\u2019 Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, it\u2019s hard to overstate the potential consequences of the Supreme Court\u2019s deliberation and judgment in this case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trial, should it occur, would be televised and also have a geopolitical dimension, because it would be closely watched by advocates of hard-right populism in other countries across the Americas and beyond. The stakes are high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, I have no doubt that Bolsonaro\u2019s supporters will try to use his legal woes to rally his political movement. The judgment of Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court, should it decide to hear this case, could therefore end Bolsonaro\u2019s political career. However, no matter what happens, I believe that Bolsonarismo would still be alive and well as a political force in Brazil and a factor in the 2026 elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anthony Pereira<\/a>, Director of the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, Florida International University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthony Pereira, Florida International University Brazilian politics are getting more dramatic again. The South American country\u2019s attorney general filed five criminal charges against former President Jair Bolsonaro and 33 others in its Supreme Court on Feb. 18, 2025, detonating political shock waves. The charges include plotting a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat to prevent Lu\u00edz In\u00e1cio Lula da […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":38818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[46,295,47,296,4],"tags":[804,16058,16059,16057,14285,479,474,5674,671,885,891,886,860,1879,520],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38819,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38817\/revisions\/38819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}