SAO PAULO –
In late November, Brazil’s federal police formally charged former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 others with plotting a coup to keep him in office. The agency described a multi-step plan, supported by evidence and testimony, in an 884-page report.
The plan included systematically sowing distrust of the electoral system among the many population, drafting a decree giving the conspiracy a façade of legal basis, pressuring top military officials to agree to the plan, and inciting riots in the capital.
Attorney General Paulo Gonet will now determine whether to formally charge the accused parties, discontinue the investigation or seek additional testimony to understand everybody’s involvement in various parts of the alleged conspiracy before deciding who will stand trial and on what grounds. Bolsonaro and his top allies deny any wrongdoing or involvement and accuse the authorities of political persecution.
Below is a summary of the important thing elements of the plan outlined in the report and the alleged connections between them.
It sows doubts about Brazil’s voting system
Police allege that efforts to spread false news about Brazil’s electronic voting system began in 2019, Bolsonaro’s first 12 months in office, but have been carried out in a more strategic and intensive manner as his 2022 re-election bid approaches.
Police say so-called “digital militias,” consisting of hundreds of social media accounts linked to pro-Bolsonaro propaganda, in addition to other outstanding right-wing influencers and politicians, are spreading propaganda claiming the voting system might be manipulated. Bolsonaro also openly expressed admiration for the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985), which, in his opinion, saved the country from communism.
The narrative of impending illegal election defeat helped Bolsonaro rally tens of hundreds of supporters for various street demonstrations, and plenty of of them to arrange camp outside barracks and military headquarters to pressure the leadership.
Three months before the election, Bolsonaro invited dozens of diplomats to the presidential palace for a nationally televised meeting during which he outlined alleged weaknesses in the voting system, without providing any evidence.
After Bolsonaro lost in 2022 to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party questioned the outcomes of the country’s highest electoral body, arguing that voting machines produced in certain years could have allowed fraud. The electoral court quickly dismissed these claims.
“They disseminated false research within the Liberal Party about the vulnerabilities of electronic voting machines in an attempt to create a factual basis for a presidential decree” that will initiate a coup, the report says.
President Lula da Silva, his wife, Vice President Alckmin and his wife drive to Congress in an open automotive for the 2023 swearing-in ceremony. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, File)
Draft decree aimed toward launching a coup d’état
In January 2023, Brazilian police found a draft decree in the house of former Justice Minister Bolsonaro Anderson Torres. Police say it was considered one of many versions prepared on the request of the far-right leader or along with his knowledge. On December 7, the previous president presented an unsigned document to the commanders of three armed forces divisions, asking for his or her support.
Investigators say the draft decree shows that Bolsonaro and his allies wanted to create a commission to investigate alleged fraud and crimes in the October 2022 vote in order that they could later suspend the powers of the country’s highest electoral court and possibly call recent elections.
The navy commander was ready to comply with the decree, but according to the report, army and air force leaders opposed any plan to prevent Lula’s inauguration. According to witnesses who spoke to investigators, these refusals are the explanation why the plan was not implemented.
Many legal experts, including, say the evidence that the previous president presented the bill to military commanders and supported different versions of the document could be very damaging.
“(The aim) was to unjustifiably intervene in the elections,” said Luiz Henrique Machado, a law professor at IDP University in the Brazilian capital. “In Brazil, the final decision is made by the electoral prosecutor’s office and the highest electoral court. a word about the electoral law.”
In an interview on UOL’s website published Thursday, Bolsonaro said he had discussed with military leaders moves including declaring a state of emergency and other exceptional measures that will suspend the rule of law for the general public good. He stated that such measures are provided for in the structure, so there may be nothing inappropriate in assessing these possibilities.
“What is being said is absurd. There was never any discussion on my part about a coup,” Bolsonaro told reporters in Brasilia on Monday.
Jair Bolsonaro and his Defense Minister Walter Souza Braga Netto attend a ceremony in Rio de Janeiro, September 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo, file)
Plan an assassination attempt on the president-elect
On November 19, Brazilian federal police arrested four army special forces officers and a federal police officer accused of conspiring in 2022 to assassinate Lula, Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. All of the arrested men were mentioned in a later declassified police report.
Police say the assassination plan was to leave Bolsonaro’s mandate as the only one valid in the second round of elections in 2022. As for de Moraes, he led a five-year investigation into fake news and threats against Supreme Court justices that resulted in some far-right allies and supporters being banned from social media and even imprisoned. In early 2023, he presided over the country’s highest electoral court, which found Bolsonaro ineligible for office until 2030 over abuse of power over a meeting he convened with foreign ambassadors to spread lies about the voting system.
Gen. Walter Braga Netto, Bolsonaro’s 2022 running mate and former defense minister, greenlit the assassination plan at a meeting with conspirators at his home, investigators added. The Federal Police portrays the retired general as one of the leaders of the plot, also involved in pressuring military leaders to sign off on the coup.
Braga Netto said in a statement on Tuesday that he never planned a coup. He added that several documents seized from one of his advisers, including “letters, drafts and media reports,” constituted “preparatory material for responding to media requests and preparing for testimony at congressional hearings.”
The police report does not indicate that an assassination attempt was made on Lula or Alckmin. However, investigators found messages and documents indicating that the conspirators were monitoring and following de Moraes at the time.
Police said they found evidence that retired Brig. Gen. Mário Fernandes, one of the arrested officers who served as the president’s interim secretary general, also visited protest camps outside military facilities, including the army headquarters in Brasilia. Investigators say they have evidence that he gave instructions to protesters and provided them with financial support.
Police stand on the other side of the window of the Planalto Palace, which was smashed by supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro on January 8, 2023. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, file)
The uprising will take place on January 8
Federal Police have linked Bolsonaro and some of his top ministers to the January 8, 2023 riots in which supporters of the former president, many of whom had camped for months outside the army headquarters, ransacked the Supreme Court, Congress and the presidential palace in Brasilia.
The protesters called on the armed forces to detain the leftist leader from office, and their uprising – which broke out after Lula’s inauguration – was an attempt to force military intervention and overthrow the new president, police say.
The report appears the riots as one of several “other actions aimed at putting pressure on the army commander to join the coup.” The police also say that Brig. In November 2022, Gen. Fernandes sent a message to Gen. Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, then army commander, in which he discussed the need for a “triggering event” for a coup.
Defendants, including Bolsonaro, argued that the riot was an isolated event, and many legal experts noted that the report’s evidence of a link between it and the broader plot was tenuous.
“It is obvious that the alleged coup plotters had contacts with people camped in front of the military barracks, people who were there on January 8. But how much of that contact turned into planning, coordination, and incentives for these people to occupy public buildings that day? This needs to be debated and discussed as the trial continues and more evidence is gathered,” said João Pedro Pádua, professor of criminal law on the Universidade Federal Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro.
Bolsonaro left for the United States a few days before Lula’s inauguration on January 1, 2023, and remained there for 3 months, maintaining a low profile. The police report shows that he avoided possible imprisonment in reference to the coup plot and awaited the implications of the rebellion.
__
