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BRASILIA: Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was convicted by a Supreme Court majority on Thursday 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 majority of a panel of five justices in Brazil’s Supreme Court makes 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 she voted to convict Bolsonaro of attempting a coup, a reference to previous attempts to overthrow democracy in Brazil.
There was ample evidence, she added, that Bolsonaro acted “with the purpose of eroding democracy and institutions”.
Three judges so far have voted to convict the former president of five crimes: taking part in an armed criminal organization, attempting to violently abolish democracy, organizing a coup, and damaging government property and protected cultural assets. One judge acquitted him, and one remains to vote.
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, echoes legal condemnation this year for far-right leaders elsewhere, including France’s Marine Le Pen and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines.
It is likely to further enrage Bolsonaro’s close ally, US President Donald Trump, who has already called the case a “witch hunt” and slammed Brazil with tariff hikes, sanctions against the presiding judge, and the revocation of visas for most members of Brazil’s high court.
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 as part of another case, 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.
That single vote could open a path to challenges to the ruling, bringing the trial’s conclusion closer to the run-up of the 2026 presidential elections.
Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2025
