SAO PAULO (AP) — Following his loss in the 2022 election, police accused former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 others of trying to pull off a coup to retain the right-wing leader in power. Having already been disqualified from competing for office again in 2026 due to a separate case, he could now face jail time and further lose his power.
Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet will decide whether to formally prosecute Bolsonaro and put him on trial or to drop the probe after receiving the sealed findings from Thursday’s indictment, according to Brazil’s federal police.
According to local media, Gonet is already facing pressure from his legal colleagues to proceed with the different investigations into the former president. Politicians also claim that if Bolsonaro is put on trial in the Supreme Court, his supporters and opponents would compete for the support of voters.
Bolsonaro is no longer the only right-wing leader. The majority of his candidates lost the mayoral elections he just finished. Carlos Melo, a professor of political science at Insper University in São Paulo, claimed that none of these inquiries were helpful to him.
Melo went on to say that Goias State Governor Ronaldo Caiado, Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, and radical Sao Paulo mayoral candidate Pablo Marcal Politicians are lining up to win over Bolsonaro supporters.
According to the website Metropoles, Bolsonaro stated that he was awaiting his attorney’s analysis of the 700-page indictment. However, he rejected the inquiry as the product of ingenuity and declared that he would defend the matter.
Following his narrow electoral loss to leftist President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva in 2022, the former president has refuted all allegations that he attempted to remain in office. Since then, Bolsonaro has been the target of numerous legal threats.
In order to prevent false information from spreading, police announced in a brief statement that the Supreme Court had decided to make the names of all 37 defendants public.
Bolsonaro’s running mate in the 2022 campaign, Gen. Walter Braga Netto, former Army commander Gen. Paulo S. Nogueira de Oliveira, Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party chairman Valdemar Costa Neto, and his seasoned former adviser, Gen. Augusto Heleno, were among the dozens of current and former Bolsonaro aides who were also charged.
Other investigations resulted in indictments for Bolsonaro’s alleged involvement in encouraging a subordinate to fabricate his and others’ COVID-19 vaccination statuses and importing diamond jewelry into Brazil without legally declaring them. In both cases, Bolsonaro has denied any involvement.
Judges prohibited him from running for office again until 2030 after another investigation revealed that he had misused his power to put doubt on the nation’s voting system.
Despite his own circling legal threats, he has maintained that he would run in 2026, and many people in his inner circle were encouraged by Donald Trump’s recent victory in the U.S. election.
The indictment is clearly terrible for Bolsonaro, but the right-wing politician may still run for office earlier than he is now permitted to, according to political analyst Creomar de Souza of Dharma Political Risk & Strategy. He is not permitted to run in the elections scheduled for 2026.
These days, the concept of due process is having trouble in the political sphere. De Souza told the AP that this might allow people who are targeted to present themselves as being persecuted. We cannot completely rule out the possibility that Bolsonaro would benefit somewhat from the strain created by indictments such as these.
According to Elo die Machado de Almeida, a law professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in São Paulo, an indictment regarding the purported coup attempt indicates that the inquiry has gathered proof of a crime and its perpetrator. She stated that she thought the prosecutor-general had sufficient legal justification to bring charges.
In an unsuccessful attempt to retain the former president in office, Bolsonaro’s congressional allies have been discussing a measure to pardon those who stormed the Brazilian capital and rioted on January 8, 2023. It has been hypothesized by analysts that lawmakers wish to expand the measure to include the former president.
However, given recent attacks on the judiciary and information uncovered by probes, efforts to advance a comprehensive amnesty bill would prove politically difficult, Machado added.
Four military personnel and a Federal Police officer were detained by Federal Police on Tuesday on suspicion of planning to kill Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes and Lula in order to topple the government after the 2022 elections.
Additionally, a man detonated a device in Brasilia last week. He killed himself by throwing explosives outside the Supreme Court after attempting to enter.
The Associated Press, 2024. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. It is prohibited to publish, broadcast, rewrite, or redistribute this content without authorization.
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