Brazil was attended on Tuesday to the most anticipated duel of recent times, broadcast live by YouTube from the Supreme Court, in Brasilia. On the bench of the defendants, former president Jair Messias Bolsonaro, a 70 -year -old nostalgic military of the state dictatorship to continue in power after losing the elections in 2022. He risks a sentence of more than 40 years in jail. In front, directing the interrogation, Judge Alexandre de Moraes, 56, the togate to which the former president accuses of political persecution, crossed out of, but to whom Brazil admires as the main bulwark in defense of democracy. “That hypothesis of the coup was not even considered in my government,” said the former president in an interrogation that has become a rally.
To the first question of the magistrate, Bolsonaro has answered with a long speech in which he has listed the achievements of his presidential mandate, embarking on the typical war of narratives in which he likes to move. Bolsonaro has tried to reduce importance to the signs and evidence gathered against him and has shielded himself in rhetorical excesses, a custom inherited from his three decades in Congress.
“We discuss possibilities, alternatives, without leaving the four lines of the Constitution,” but, the former president has continued, “we abandon any possibility of constitutional action and face the sunset of our government.” And he has denied having pressed any of the ministers or bosses of the Armed Forces to do anything illegal.
After insisting that the day of the assault on the three powers, in January 2023, he was out of Brazil-in concrete, in Florida, USA-has emphasized that, “without leader, without armed forces and without financial support, there is no blow.” And, as an example, he recalled that in 1964 the military took power with the support of the great media, the Catholic Church, foreign businessmen and countries. “
Bolsonaro has splashed his responses to the interrogative judge with the defense of his main flags: homeland, God, family, free market … He has criticized the sentences to the venues of the presidency, of Congress and the same Supreme and, although many years in prison are played, even a joke has been allowed, which the judge has cut dry:
-Mairo, can you give me a joke?
-I would consult with your lawyers.
-I invite you to be my vice in 2026.
-Decline
Bolsonaro has reached the headquarters of the Supreme, one of the places violently invaded when Lula had been in power for a week, with a specimen of the fundamental law in hand. He has always denied accusations on the argument that he always acted “within the four lines of the Constitution.”
The sentence against Bolsonaro is expected before the end of the year, so as not to interfere with the presidential elections of 2026. The brief of the accusation places the ultra -rightist as the main leader of a coup plot to cling to power and no, the current president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 79 years.
The hard core of the plot shed, according to the prosecution’s complaint, to kill Lula, to its vice president, Geraldo Alckmin, and Judge Moraes, in addition to handling drafts of coup decrees to endorse an illegal military intervention in a strategy that culminated in January 8, 2023.
Other presidents of contemporary Brazil were tried before Bolsonaro but it was for corruption (the convictions against President Lula were filed for defects and he himself starred in 2017 a scene similar to today’s with Judge Sérgio Moro). None of the Brazilian leaders courts reached the bench for directing a rupture plan of the constitutional order. The Prosecutor’s Office argues that, if it did not curdle, it was for the rejection of the heads of the Army and the Air Force to
Bolsonaro currently exercised the head of the opposition to the president, the leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose electoral victory never agreed to recognize. The former army captain maintains the charisma, and Bolsonarism, although its leader is disabled to participate in the elections until 2030. However, nobody discusses that Bolsonaro is the central figure of the Brazilian right and that, except surprise, will have the last word in the choice of the person measured at the polls when in 2026 Lula looks for re -election.
The interrogations have led to the first public meeting between Bolsonaro and the author of the confession that is the main incriminating evidence against him and his accomplices, Colonel Mauro Cid. As Personal Secretary of Bolsonaro in the Presidency, he took the mobile phone and, according to the accusation brief. Both exchanged a cordial greeting on Monday before Cid declared that he was aware of the coup plans, but that he did not participate. Yes, he confirmed the president’s meetings with the heads of the Armed Forces, where he supposedly proposed coup maneuvers, but the Coronal Cid framed some of the incriminating messages or statements that revealed police and judges as “bravuconadas” or “bar talks.”
The interrogation session, which began on Monday, has given an unpublished scene. Never before in a country that buried the dictatorship in 1985. The first of them to declare, Augusto Heleno, has preferred to keep silent before the investigating judge and has only responded to his lawyer.
Together with the former president, other military or police officers sit on the bench: four general reserve, three of whom accompanied him as ministers in the government, the fourth directed the Navy, the former head of the Internal Espionage Agency and the former Minister of Justice. All of them are accused of five crimes, among them, attempted violent abolition of the democratic state of law, coup d’etat and belonging to criminal organization, which can lead to up to 43 years in prison.
