Salutations, PauLO In late November, Brazil’s Federal Police officially charged 36 people, including far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, with plotting a coup to retain Bolsonaro in power. In an 884-page report, the agency detailed a multi-step plan that was supported by testimony and facts.
Inciting a riot in the capital, pressing high military commanders to support the plan, creating a decree to give the scheme a semblance of legal foundation, and methodically fostering public mistrust of the electoral system were all part of the plan.
Before choosing who will stand trial on which counts, prosecutor-general Paulo Gonet will now determine whether to formally charge the accused parties, end the investigation, or ask for additional testimony to grasp each person’s involvement in various aspects of the alleged plot. Bolsonaro and his principal supporters have accused the government of political persecution and denied any crime or collusion.
The main components of the plan as outlined in the study are broken down here, along with their purported connections.
Casting doubt on Brazil’s electoral system
According to police, attempts to spread false information on Brazil’s electronic voting system started during Bolsonaro’s first year in government in 2019 but became more concentrated and sophisticated as his 2022 reelection campaign approached.
According to police, propaganda alleging the voting system could be tampered with is circulated by so-called digital militias, which are made up of thousands of social media profiles connected to pro-Bolsonaro propaganda and other well-known right-wing politicians and influencers. Bolsonaro also publicly praised Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964–1985), saying it prevented communism from taking over the nation.
Bolsonaro was able to mobilize tens of thousands of followers for several public protests and to camp outside military bases and offices in order to exert pressure on leaders by using the narrative of an imminent fraudulent election defeat.
In a nationally televised meeting three months prior to the election, Bolsonaro called dozens of diplomats to the presidential palace to discuss alleged voting machine weaknesses without offering any supporting documentation.
Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party challenged the results at the nation’s highest election court after he lost to leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2022, claiming voting machines manufactured in particular years would have allowed for fraud. The claims were promptly rejected by the electoral court.
According to the investigation, they disseminated erroneous research about the weaknesses of the electronic voting machines via the Liberal Party in an effort to provide a credible foundation for a presidential proclamation that would initiate the coup.
A draft decree to initiate the coup
A draft decree was discovered by Brazilian police in January 2023 in the residence of Anderson Torres, the former justice minister under Bolsonaro. According to authorities, it was one of several versions that were either written with the far-right leader’s knowledge or at his request. On Dec. 7, the former president sought the backing of the commanders of the three armed forces divisions by presenting the document, unsigned.
In order to suspend the authority of the country’s highest electoral court and maybe call for a new election, investigators say the draft decree demonstrates Bolsonaro and his supporters’ attempt to form a commission to look into claims of fraud and other irregularities in the October 2022 vote.
According to the story, the commander of the navy was prepared to follow the order, but the heads of the army and air force opposed any strategy that would delay Lula’s inauguration. Witnesses told investigators that the scheme did not proceed because of those refusals.
Evidence that the former president showed the draft to military officials and backed several draft versions is considered extremely harmful by many legal experts.
According to Luiz Henrique Machado, a law professor at the IDP university in Brasilia, the objective was to meddle excessively in elections. In Brazil, the supreme electoral court and the office of the electoral prosecutors have the last say on electoral laws.
Bolsonaro claimed to have discussed with military officers actions like declaring a state of emergency and other extraordinary steps that would have suspended the rule of law for the sake of the public in an interview with the website UOL that was published on Thursday. He claimed that since the constitution allows for such actions, considering those choices is not impolite.
It’s ridiculous what’s being said. Bolsonaro told reporters in Brasilia on Monday that there has never been any talk of a coup.
Make plans to kill the incoming president.
Four army special operations personnel and a federal police officer were detained by Brazil’s Federal Police on November 19 on suspicion of planning to kill Lula, Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes in 2022. A police report, later disclosed, mentioned all of the guys who had been arrested.
According to authorities, the assassination plan aimed to make Bolsonaro’s ticket the only one still valid for the 2022 runoff. Some far-right sympathizers and allies have been banned from social media and even imprisoned as a result of de Moraes’ five-year investigation into fake news and threats against Supreme Court justices. He oversaw the country’s highest electoral court in early 2023 when it ruled that Bolsonaro was unable to serve until 2030 due to abuse of authority involving a meeting he called with foreign diplomats to disseminate false information about the election process.
Investigators also found that Bolsonaro’s 2022 running partner and former defense minister, Gen. Walter Braga Netto, approved the assassination plan at a meeting with the conspirators inside his house. The retired general is portrayed by Federal Police as one of the plot’s masterminds, who also exerted pressure on military leaders to support the coup.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Braga Netto claimed that he had never planned a coup. He went on to say that a number of the papers taken from one of his assistants, including drafts, notes, and media stories, were meant to be used as preparation for testifying before Congress and responding to inquiries from the media.
There is no indication in the police report that Lula or Alckmin were the targets of an attempted murder. Nevertheless, detectives discovered documents and messages that showed the plotters were keeping an eye on and trailing de Moraes at the time.
One of the commanders detained, retired Brig. Gen. M rio Fernandes, who had been acting as the interim general secretary of the presidency, was also seen visiting the protest camps outside military facilities, including the army headquarters in Brasilia, according to evidence discovered by police. Investigators claimed to have proof that he provided the demonstrators with guidance and funding.
Jan. 8 rebellion
Bolsonaro and a few of his senior ministers were implicated by Federal Police in the Jan. 8, 2023, riot in which the former president’s followers, many of whom had been encamped outside army headquarters for months, looted the presidential palace, Congress, and Supreme Court in Brasilia.
According to authorities, the demonstrators’ insurrection, which occurred after Lula took office, was an attempt to compel military involvement and remove the new president. They had appealed with the military to keep the leftist leader out of government.
According to the article, the riot was just one of many acts taken to coerce the army commander into participating in the coup d’etat. Additionally, according to police, in November 2022, Brig. Gen. Fernandes wrote to Gen. Marco Ant nio Freire Gomes, who was the Army’s commander at the time, about the necessity of a coup trigger event.
Bolsonaro and other defendants have maintained that the riot was a singular incident, and numerous legal professionals have pointed out that the report’s proof of a link between it and a larger conspiracy is shaky.
It is evident that those who were camped outside military barracks on January 8 had touch with the purported coup plotters. How much of that interaction, however, was used to organize, coordinate, and motivate those individuals to take over public facilities that day? According to Jo o Pedro P. Dua, a professor of criminal law proceedings at the Universidade Federal Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro, that will be up for dispute and discussed during the process and the gathering of additional evidence.
Days before Lula’s inauguration on January 1, 2023, Bolsonaro departed for the United States and remained there for three months while maintaining a low profile. According to the police investigation, he was waiting for the aftermath from the revolt and avoiding potential jail time for the coup plot.
The Associated Press
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