Maringá, BRAZIL – Brazil is living in a historical moment.
For the first time, a president was judged and convicted for plotting a coup.
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On Thursday, a panel of five Supreme Court justices found former president Jair Messias Bolsonaro guilty of leading an organized criminal group and plotting a coup against democracy.
The decisive guilty vote came from the only woman on the panel, Supreme Court Minister Cármen Lúcia.
“Brazil is just worth it because we are still in a democratic state of right,” Lúcia said in court, according to the newspaper Folha d.São Paulo.
The panel sentenced the former president to 27 years and three months for the crimes.
Along with Bolsonaro, there were seven other people sentenced, two of whom are former defense ministers as well as a former spy chief and a former security minister.
Investigators proved that Bolsonaro led a January 8th, 2023 incident when thousands of protesters stormed the Federal Congress and the presidential house, Palácio do Planalto, located in Brasília, the national capital. They damaged parts of it in response to the results of the 2022 presidential elections, in which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected.
According to the BBC News, prosecutors said Bolsonaro had started his plot to stay in power long before, proposing a coup to military commanders and sowing unfounded doubts about the electoral system.
They also said that Bolsonaro knew of a plan to assassinate Lula and his vice-presidential running mate, as well as a Supreme Court justice.
In May, the former president met privately with Ricardo Pita, senior counselor in the Trump administration, according to news reports.
At the end of the month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there’s a high chance of the U.S. imposing sanctions on the Supreme Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes – who was the leader at Bolsonaro’s trial.
In July, U.S. President Donald Trump shared his support for Bolsonaro on his social media, calling it a “witch hunt” and demanding that Bolsonaro be left in peace.
Two days after his social media posts, Trump imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods. In an official release from the Trump Administration, the president shared his retaliation for Bolsonaro’s judgment.
“That’s very much like they tried to do with me. But they didn’t get away with it at all,” Trump wrote.
During Bolsonaro’s court session when he was found guilty and sentenced, one of the ministers, Flávio Dino, replied to the U.S. position, even joking about a payoff or influence by Mickey Mouse.
“Do people believe that a tweet from a foreign authority or government will change the Supreme judgment? Will a credit card or Mickey change it?“ said Dino.
As a journalist who covered the 2022 elections, one of the most remarkable moments to me was when then-President Bolsonaro disagreed with passing the presidential band to Lula, a clear message about his intentions.
Back in 1969, a similar coup took place, but the difference was that it led the country to live in a dictatorship for more than 20 years.
When Brazil became a democracy again, all the generals were pardoned.
For some Brazilians, the biggest fear was that the same thing would happen again. But it didn’t.
Bolsonaro is expected to spend the rest of his life imprisoned. He’s also barred from running for any public office until 2060.
It’ll definitely be enough time for him and other prospective criminals to ponder democracy and realize that things can’t run wild in our country.
The law is the same for all, and it’s more than fair, setting up limits to avoid falling into authoritarianism again.
Luckily, the judges were reasonable and embraced justice, instead of playing the game of an extremist political group.
Or, as Lúcia, the Supreme Court minister, said during the judgment, “Nowhere in the world, much less here, is there absolute immunity against authoritarianism, which insidiously creeps in, distilling its poison to contaminate freedoms and human rights, the freedom of humanity.
“Because, in truth, what defines the peace we must always seek is not the existence of oblivion. Sometimes, peace is achieved through the proper functioning of the repressive agencies of the State.”
Nicole Luna is a Senior Correspondent with Youth Journalism International.
