BRASILIA: Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was convicted by the Supreme Court on Thursday (Sep 11) of plotting a coup to remain in power after losing the 2022 election, a powerful blow to the populist far-right movement he created.
The ruling by a panel of five justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court made Bolsonaro the first former president in the country’s history to be convicted for attacking democracy.
“This criminal case is almost a meeting between Brazil and its past, its present and its future,” Justice Carmen Lucia said before her vote to convict Bolsonaro, referring to a history checkered with military coups and attempts to overthrow democracy.
There was ample evidence, she added, that Bolsonaro acted “with the purpose of eroding democracy and institutions”.
Four of the five judges voted to convict the former president of five crimes: taking part in an armed criminal organisation; attempting to violently abolish democracy; organising a coup; and damaging government property and protected cultural assets. One judge voted to acquit him.
The conviction of Bolsonaro, a former army captain who never hid his admiration for the military dictatorship that killed hundreds of Brazilians between 1964 and 1985, follows legal condemnations for other far-right leaders this year, including France’s Marine Le Pen and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte.
It is likely to further enrage Bolsonaro’s close ally, United States President Donald Trump, who had called the case a “witch hunt” and in retaliation hit Brazil with tariff hikes, sanctions against the presiding judge, and the revocation of visas for most of the high court justices.
Trump said on Thursday he was surprised that Bolsonaro had been convicted.
The justices are expected to decide on a prison sentence, and how it would be served, by Friday. Bolsonaro, who is currently under house arrest, faces a maximum potential sentence of 40 years.
The verdict was not unanimous, with Justice Luiz Fux on Wednesday breaking with his peers by acquitting the former president of all charges and questioning the court’s jurisdiction.
That single vote could open a path to challenges to the ruling, which could push the trial’s conclusion closer to the October 2026 presidential election. Bolsonaro has repeatedly said he will be a candidate in that election despite being barred from running for office.
As he watched his father’s conviction from the US, Brazilian Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro told Reuters he expected Trump to react, possibly imposing further sanctions on Brazil and its high court justices.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that the court had “unjustly ruled”, adding: “The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt.”
