Former President Bolsonaro turns trial for leading an attempted coup against Lula into a rally.

Brazil has attended the most anticipated trial in recent times this Tuesday, broadcast live on YouTube from the Supreme Court in Brasília. On the defendants’ bench sits former president Jair Messias Bolsonaro, a 70-year-old military figure nostalgic for the dictatorship, accused of leading an attempted coup to remain in power after losing the 2022 elections. He faces a sentence of over 40 years in prison. Opposing him, directing the interrogation, is Judge Alexandre de Moraes, 56, whom the former president is accused of politically persecuting, labeled a dictator by businessman Elon Musk, yet admired by half of Brazil as the main defender of democracy.

To the judge’s first question about the campaign regarding alleged fraud in the elections, Bolsonaro replied with a long speech listing the achievements of his presidential term, engaging in the narrative wars he enjoys. He emphasized that distrust in the voting system is not a personal issue but shared by others, including some of the judges judging him, he stated. “The Armed Forces did not interfere in politics,” reiterated the accused.

Bolsonaro arrived at the Supreme Court, one of the places violently invaded by his thousands of followers in January 2023, holding a copy of the Constitution. He has always denied the accusations, arguing that he always acted “within the four lines of the Constitution.”

The sentence against Bolsonaro is expected before the end of the year, to avoid interfering with the 2026 presidential elections. The indictment places the far-right politician as the main ringleader of a coup plot to cling to power and not hand over the reins to the winner, current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 79.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the core of the plot contemplated assassinating Lula during the transition, along with his vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, and Judge Moraes himself, as well as drafting coup decrees to endorse an illegal military intervention in a strategy that culminated in the assault on the headquarters of the Three Powers on January 8, 2023.

Other contemporary Brazilian presidents were judged before Bolsonaro, but they were for corruption (the convictions against President Lula were dismissed for technical defects, and he himself had a similar scene in 2017 with Judge Sérgio Moro). None of the judged Brazilian leaders faced the bench for orchestrating a plan to disrupt the constitutional order. The Prosecutor’s Office holds that, if it did not materialize, it was due to the rejection of the Army and Air Force chiefs to participate in the insurrection.

Bolsonaro currently serves as the leader of the opposition to President Lula, whose electoral victory he has never accepted. The former army captain maintains charisma, and bolsonarismo continues to be a living political movement, although its leader is ineligible to participate in elections until 2030. However, no one disputes that Bolsonaro is the central figure of the Brazilian right and that, barring surprises, he will have the final word in choosing the person who will compete at the polls when Lula seeks re-election in 2026.

The interrogations have facilitated the first public meeting between Bolsonaro and the author of the confession that serves as the main incriminating evidence against him and his accomplices, Colonel Mauro Cid. As Bolsonaro’s personal secretary in the Presidency, he carried the mobile phone and acted as a messenger for the coup plans, according to the indictment. They exchanged a cordial greeting on Monday before Cid stated that he was aware of the coup plans but did not participate. He did confirm the meetings between the president and the heads of the Armed Forces, where he allegedly proposed coup maneuvers, but Colonel Cid framed some of the incriminating messages or statements revealed to police and judges as “bluster” or “bar talk.”

The interrogation session, which began on Monday, has provided an unprecedented scene. Never before have four-star generals been judged by a civilian court in a country that buried the dictatorship in 1985. The first to testify, Augusto Heleno, preferred to remain silent before the judge and only responded to his lawyer.

Alongside the former president, other military or police personnel sit on the bench: four reserve generals, three of whom served as ministers in his government, the fourth directed the Navy, the former head of the internal intelligence agency, and the ex-minister of Justice. All are accused of five crimes, including the violent attempted abolition of the democratic state of law, coup d’état, and membership in a criminal organization, which can carry up to 43 years in prison.