SAO PAULO/BRASILIA — Former Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro was charged on Tuesday with overseeing a plot to overturn his 2022 election loss with a coup, further complicating the far-right firebrand’s already narrow hopes of pulling off a political comeback.
Prosecutor General Paulo Gonet charged Bolsonaro and his running mate, General Walter Braga Netto, with leading a “criminal organization” that aimed to overthrow Brazil’s 40-year-old democracy.
A total of 34 people were charged in the plot, including several military officials, such as Bolsonaro’s former national security adviser, retired General Augusto Heleno, and former Navy Commander Almir Garnier Santos, according to the charge sheet.
“The responsibility for acts harmful to the democratic order falls upon a criminal organization led by Jair Messias Bolsonaro, based on an authoritarian project of power,” it added.
Analysts consider it unlikely Bolsonaro will be arrested before his trial, unless Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the case, deems him a flight risk.
The case echoes the criminal charges faced by U.S. President Donald Trump that accused him of seeking to overturn his own re-election loss in 2020. That case was repeatedly delayed and ultimately dropped after Trump was returned to power in last November’s U.S. election.
The charges against Bolsonaro come just months after Brazil’s federal police concluded a two-year investigation into his role in the election-denying movement that culminated in the riots by his supporters that swept the capital, Brasilia, in early 2023, a week after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office.
At the time, many protesters admitted that they wanted to create chaos to justify a military coup that they considered imminent. Late last year, police arrested five alleged conspirators suspected of planning to assassinate the leftist Lula before he took office.
Prosecutors have said the Bolsonaro-led plot included plans to poison Lula, a one-time union leader who previously served two terms as president.
Lula narrowly defeated the right-wing standard-bearer in the late 2022 presidential election.
“They sought total control over the three branches of government; they outlined a central office that would serve the purpose of organizing the new order they intended to establish,” the charging document noted, referring to those who allegedly pushed the coup plot.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has repeatedly denied breaking any laws, and calls allegations against him a witch hunt by his political opponents.
