Brazil braces for Bolsonaro's day in court as ex-president testifies over ‘coup plot'
The 70-year-old paratrooper turned populist, who governed from 2019 until 2023, is scheduled to be interrogated by the supreme court as it seeks to untangle what federal police claim was a sprawling three-year plot to vandalize one of the world's largest democracies.
Seven other alleged co-conspirators will also be questioned, including four former Bolsonaro ministers – three of them army generals; the ex-commander of the navy; and the ex-president's former right-hand man, Lt Col Mauro Cid.
Bolsonaro's day in court, which is expected to come on Tuesday, is a milestone moment for a country that escaped from two decades of military dictatorship in 1985 but appears to have come perilously close to a return to authoritarian rule after the veteran leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva beat Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential election.
Related: Bombshell police report details alleged Bolsonaro plot to stage rightwing coup
'This is the first time in Brazilian history that there is the prospect of the perpetrators of a coup being brought to justice,' said Bernardo Mello Franco, a political writer for the newspaper O Globo.
'Brazilian history is full of military coups and counter-coups … but throughout history the characters [behind them] have always gone unpunished, either because they succeeded in pulling off the coup and seized control of the judiciary, or because they were granted amnesty, which is what happened after the [1964-85] military dictatorship,' Mello Franco added.
Bolsonaro is accused of trying – but ultimately failing – to overturn Lula's victory through a murderous plot, which allegedly involved assassinating or arresting key political rivals including the president-elect; his vice-president-elect, Geraldo Alckmin; and the supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes. He has repeatedly denied the charges.
The prospect of watching Bolsonaro go on trial has thrilled his many progressive detractors who, in addition to the alleged coup attempt, blame the ex-president for rampant Amazon devastation; historic attacks on the rights of Indigenous peoples, human rights and Brazilian culture; and a calamitous and anti-scientific response to a Covid pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people.
There is broad consensus among experts that Bolsonaro will be found guilty and convicted later this year, meaning the former congressman could face political oblivion and a decades-long prison sentence.
'Bolsonaro himself believes he has already been convicted by the supreme court – he's said it on numerous occasions,' Mello Franco said. 'Those who understand the supreme court also believe he'll be found guilty. There's a great deal of evidence against him.'
Last week the former head of the air force, Brig Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior, gave damning evidence, telling the supreme court that at one point in 2022 the former head of the army, Gen Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, threatened to arrest Bolsonaro if he sought any kind of 'institutional rupture'.
But major questions remain over whether, if convicted, Bolsonaro will ever actually serve time.
Already one rightwing presidential hopeful in the 2026 election, Romeu Zema, has pledged to pardon Bolsonaro if he wins power. Polls suggest that if Lula seeks re-election he will face a tough battle against whichever rightwing candidate inherits the votes of the still-popular Bolsonaro, who has already been barred from running because of his attacks on Brazil's electronic voting system.
Potential heirs include one of Bolsonaro's politician sons, Eduardo or Flávio Bolsonaro; his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro; or the conservative governors of the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Paraná: Tarcísio de Freitas, Zema and Ratinho Júnior, respectively.
There are also doubts over how Bolsonaro, a notoriously rambunctious Trump-inspired populist with a huge social media following, will behave when his day in court arrives.
On the eve of his appearance, Bolsonaro promised he would not use the hearing to 'lacrar', a Portuguese word which roughly translates as 'take the piss', 'troll' or 'drop the mic'. But the ex-president said his 'inquisition' would be 'worth watching' and urged followers to tune in to see that 'truth' was on his side.
'It will be broadcast live, which is bonkers,' Mello Franco said of the politically charged session, declining to forecast how Bolsonaro might behave in the dock. 'The only predictable thing about Bolsonaro is that he'll be unpredictable.'
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