In late 2024, Brazilian police released a comprehensive report detailing three years of coup plotting that took place during the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. The report outlines steps Bolsonaro and his allies took to prepare for the eventuality that the 2022 presidential election results would not be in Bolsonaro’s favor. The legal fallout from this well-documented coup plot continues to unfold.
This latest evidence fits into a broader story of Bolsonaro’s reliance on the military – and his weak commitment to democracy. Yet key democratic forces in Brazil resisted his moves to undermine Brazil’s democracy. While many citizens supported Bolsonaro’s attempt to overturn the 2022 election, others mobilized in opposition. And Brazil’s courts have been effective in imposing sanctions against those involved in the coup plot.
Bolsonaro forged close ties to the military
Bolsonaro assumed the Brazilian presidency in January 2019. He had previously served seven terms as a congressman in the Chamber of Deputies. During his tenure in congress, Bolsonaro changed party affiliation multiple times, which is not unusual in Brazil’s fragmented party system. In 2018, he joined the Social Liberal Party (PSL), considered one of Brazil’s “parties for rent.” This move enabled him to run for president – but he then entered the presidency without the support of a more institutionalized political party.
Without a strong party base, Bolsonaro turned to the military to shore up his power. He appointed nearly 6,000 military officers to positions across the government. By 2020, he had replaced all the civilian politicians in his inner cabinet with military men. And he put generals in positions of management in Brazil’s public enterprises. Leaders regularly involve their militaries in the economy as a “coalition-building mechanism” that helps bind the military to the regime. But the extent of military involvement in the Bolsonaro cabinet was well above the norm across democratic and authoritarian regimes.
Yet in the Brazilian context these moves make sense. As political scientists Wendy Hunter and Diego Vega note, the Brazilian military has been a remarkably popular institution for decades. Survey data from 2019 showed that public confidence in Brazil’s armed forces far exceeded confidence in the presidency. In addition, because the Brazilian military is technically and logistically skilled, military units have been employed to carry out various national projects like building infrastructure and supporting public health efforts. These characteristics are particularly valuable to populist leaders like Bolsonaro, who benefit from borrowing the military’s patriotic bona fides and can lean on the military for policy implementation.
The 2022 elections and Bolsonaro’s attempts to undermine them
Fast forward to the 2022 electoral cycle. Bolsonaro entered the campaign with a low approval rating. In the run up to the election, he ramped up accusations that the electoral system was compromised and claimed Brazilian Supreme Court justices were trying to sabotage his reelection.
After Bolsonaro lost to Lula da Silva in a tight run-off election in October 2022, thousands of his supporters protested and set up camps at military bases across the country, demanding the military stage a coup d’etat. Civilian support for coups is not uncommon, political science research suggests. In fact, civilians regularly play an important role in instigating and legitimating coups across the globe.
On Jan. 8, 2023, a week after Lula’s presidential inauguration, protesters who had camped at the main army headquarters, joined by others arriving by bus, converged on Brazil’s federal buildings, accompanied by some members of the Federal District’s military police. Protesters exacted major damage in the National Congress and Supreme Court buildings as well as the Presidential Palace.
This was possible because the job of protest management for the federal buildings was in the hands of Bolsonaro supporters. The Federal District governor at the time, Ibaneis Rocha, to whom the Federal District’s police ultimately answered, downplayed warnings from Brazil’s intelligence agency that protests would be large and violent. And Federal District Security Chief Anderson Torres shook up top leadership of the force and then left the country just before the protests were to take place. Under his leadership, a report from the Attorney General’s office notes, “only a small, relatively inexperienced contingent of riot control agents” were stationed to monitor the protests. After hours of chaos, a larger police contingent contained the riots and President Da Silva declared a partial federal intervention, removing control of security from the governor. Soon after, police cleared the protest encampments at military bases.
What does the police report say?
The recently released 884-page report “formally accused Bolsonaro and 36 other people of attempting a coup.” Included in the report are details on the publicly visible efforts, such as the attempts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of elections and foment the riot that occurred after Lula’s inauguration. It also includes more covert aspects of the coup plans, including a draft decree intended to create a legal basis for overturning the electoral results.
Crucially, the report directly states that Jair Bolsonaro “planned, acted and was directly and effectively aware of the actions of the criminal organization aiming to launch a coup d’etat and eliminate the democratic rule of law.” It also states that Bolsonaro called a meeting with commanders of the armed forces to present the draft decree. This contradicts Bolsonaro’s claims that he was unaware of any plot to keep him in power.
Evidence shows that while the commander of the navy and the defense minister supported the coup attempt, the army and air force commanders refused to participate, ultimately preventing the coup. The report also says that those who stood in the way were subsequently targeted by a pro-Bolsonaro “digital militia,” which worked to spread fake news attacking Bolsonaro’s political opponents during his presidency.
Holding coup-plotters accountable
This police report is part of a broader effort in Brazil to hold both military and civilian conspirators accountable for their actions.
Failed coup-plotters around the world regularly face harsh punishment for their actions. Leaders who survive coup attempts usually take the opportunity to purge coup plotters and their supporters from the military or other positions in government. The goal is to remove their ability to stage another coup attempt in the future – and deter other would-be coup plotters. One recent estimate suggests that slightly over 60% of conspirators in all failed coups between 1950 and 2010 were imprisoned or executed.
Other research, which focuses on conspirators in failed coup plots in seven African countries between 1957 and 1994, shows that leaders tend to hold coup plotters from within their own coalition accountable through a judicial process, while political opponents are more likely to receive “extrajudicial” punishment.
In Brazil, within months of taking office, Lula replaced over 100 military officers appointed by Bolsonaro. And this December, General Walter Braga Netto, Bolsonaro’s running mate in 2022, was arrested on charges of interfering in the investigations into the alleged coup plot. Braga Netto is the first 4-star general arrested in Brazil’s history. (The leaders of Brazil’s military regime from 1964 to 1985 have not faced punishment.)
Many of the Bolsonaro supporters who participated in the Jan. 8, 2023, riot have also been punished. In the immediate aftermath of the riots, police detained some 2,100 people. As of November 2024, 265 had been convicted of crimes related to the attack. Seven members of the military police were also arrested for assisting rioters.
What to do with politicians who try to subvert democracy
Yet accountability for civilians directly involved in coup plots is more challenging – particularly for politicians like Bolsonaro, who have held high-level positions and may still have significant popular support. When conspirators are purged from the military, they lose access to the coercive capital – the weapons and command of troops – they might use in subsequent coup attempts. But civilian coup plotters leverage a different resource in their efforts to seize power: social capital, or their ability to galvanize public support. This support typically does not disappear when they are out of office.
In the wake of successful coups, coup-plotters and their allies have increasingly turned to elections to help legitimate their actions. While voters may dislike coups, there are few barriers to prevent coup-plotters from running in elections. In recent years, for instance, successful coup leaders and their associates in Egypt and Zimbabwe retained power via elections, despite African Union prohibitions on allowing them to run.
Efforts to restrict the ability of failed coup plotters to continue to compete for political office may be even more challenging. Few constitutions contain explicit provisions that ban candidates for political office on these grounds – and where such provisions do exist they may be difficult to enforce. In the United States, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that only Congress, and not individual states, could use the “insurrection clause” of the U.S. Constitution to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. And in South Korea, lawmakers in the National Assembly initially failed to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol for his recent declaration of martial law, before succeeding on the second try. (It is now up to the country’s Constitutional Court to decide whether to reinstate Yoon, or formally remove him from power).
Will Brazil be an exception?
There are some signs that Brazil might have more success. In June 2023, Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court banned Bolsonaro from running in the next presidential election, in 2026. The court charged him for abuse of power, and spreading false information about the country’s election system. Bolsonaro, however, remains eligible to run again after 2030.
Other efforts at accountability have come from citizens more broadly. In August 2022, for instance, nearly 1 million Brazilians, fearing Bolsonaro would not respect the results of that year’s election, signed an open letter cautioning that citizens would not tolerate an attempt to use or incite violence to generate “a rupture with constitutional order.”
In short, efforts to hold Bolsonaro accountable are coming both from other branches of government and from the broader public. Whether he will ultimately face larger consequences remains to be seen. Police delivered their report to Brazil’s Supreme Court. It will now be up to Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet to make a determination about whether to officially charge Bolsonaro.
Still, the Electoral Court’s decision to bar Bolsonaro from running for eight years represents the first time this kind of decision was imposed on a former president in Brazil. While many feared Bolsonaro’s presidency would create significant democratic backsliding, Brazil’s democracy seems to have been more robust than expected. And the country stands out for its progress toward transparency and accountability.
Erica De Bruin is an associate professor of government at Hamilton College and the author of “How to Prevent Coups d’État: Counterbalancing and Regime Survival” (Cornell University Press, 2020).
Heather Sullivan is an associate professor of government at Hamilton College and a 2024-2025 Good Authority fellow. She studies Latin American politics and is interested in the ways state capacity shapes political outcomes.
