BRASILIA. Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced on Thursday to 27 years and three months in prison after being convicted of plotting a coup to stay in power following his defeat in the 2022 election. The landmark ruling, delivered by a panel of five Supreme Court justices, makes Bolsonaro the first former president in Brazil’s history to be convicted for attacking democracy.
Justice Carmen Lucia, who voted to convict, said the trial symbolized a confrontation with Brazil’s troubled political legacy. “This criminal case is almost a meeting between Brazil and its past, its present and its future,” she declared, adding that Bolsonaro acted “with the purpose of eroding democracy and institutions.”
Four of the five justices found Bolsonaro guilty of five crimes: participation in an armed criminal organization, attempting to violently abolish democracy, organizing a coup, and damaging government property and cultural assets. One justice, Luiz Fux, dissented and questioned the court’s jurisdiction, a move that could open the door to appeals and prolong the legal battle.
The conviction adds to Bolsonaro’s growing list of legal setbacks. In 2023, Brazil’s electoral court barred him from holding public office until 2030 over repeated unfounded claims about the country’s electronic voting system. Despite this, Bolsonaro has said he intends to run in the 2026 election. “They want to get me out of the political game next year,” he told Reuters recently. “Without me in the race, Lula could beat anyone.”
The ruling also reverberated internationally. Former U.S. President Donald Trump, a close ally of Bolsonaro, denounced the verdict as “a terrible thing” and suggested it was “very bad for Brazil.” Trump had previously criticized the case as a “witch hunt” and imposed sanctions, tariff hikes, and visa restrictions against Brazilian justices. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed the criticism on X, saying the court had “unjustly ruled” and warning that the United States “will respond accordingly.”
Bolsonaro’s son, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, said from the U.S. that he expected Trump to escalate sanctions against Brazil and its judiciary.
The court also convicted seven of Bolsonaro’s allies, including five military officers, marking the first time since the republic’s founding almost 140 years ago that members of the armed forces have been punished for attempting to overthrow democracy. Historian Carlos Fico of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro said the verdict was unprecedented: “The trial is a wake-up call for the armed forces. They must be realizing that something has changed, given that there was never any punishment before, and now there is.”
Bolsonaro, a 70-year-old former army captain, rose from the political fringes in the 1980s to build a formidable conservative coalition that reshaped Brazil’s Congress. His presidency was marked by skepticism toward COVID-19 vaccines, environmental deregulation in the Amazon, and increasingly polarizing rhetoric, including his claim in 2021 that his future held only three outcomes: “being arrested, killed, or victory.”
His conviction is being seen as a critical test of Brazil’s democratic resilience. Gleisi Hoffmann, Institutional Relations Minister under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, welcomed the decision: “Bolsonaro’s conviction ensures that no one dares again to attack the rule of law or the will of the people as expressed at the ballot box.”
The sentencing of Bolsonaro and his allies reflects Brazil’s judiciary’s aggressive approach under Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has spearheaded actions against misinformation, coup plots, and far-right attacks on institutions. The decision signals that Brazil’s courts are prepared to hold even its most powerful political figures accountable for threats to democracy.
Edgardo Hernal started college at UP Diliman and received his BA in Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila, and Masters in Information Systems Management from Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University in Oak Brook, IL. He has 25 years of copy editing and management experience at Thomson West, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters.
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