The case will serve as a parameter for the discussion of a possible pardon in 2026. He is a defendant in the coup plot process and should be tried later this year by the Supreme.
If the former president is convicted, and the next president grants him grace, the (Supreme Court) may use the episode of the deputy deputy to overthrow the decree, in a scenario of crisis between the Executive and Judiciary.
Similarly, the pressure for pardon, experts say, means the search for an alternative to the amnesty project, standing in Congress.
“The STF would be protected if it denied a pardon to the former president, because it created a precedent with Daniel Silveira,” says Juliana Cesario Alvim Gomes, professor of Constitutional Law at UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais).
“The former president can be convicted of more serious crimes than Silveira’s, which would be another justification for the intervention of the Supreme,” she says.
Defendant, Bolsonaro is accused of committing five crimes: coup, armed criminal organization, damage qualified by violence and serious threat against the union’s assets, with considerable damage to the victim, as well as deterioration of the overturned assets and attempted violent abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law.
If you are convicted of the crimes of the coup plot, a. The former president has also been convicted of the TSE for attacks and lies about the electoral system, so today is ineligible at least until 2030.
In 2022, the Supreme Court sentenced Silveira to 8 years and 9 months in prison for crimes of threat to the Democratic Rule of Law and coercion in the course of the process. A year earlier, the then deputy had recorded a video in which he attacked the STF ministers, defended the closure of the Supreme and asked for a new AI-5, an instrument of repression of the military dictatorship.
After the trial, Bolsonaro granted an individual pardon to the ally, overthrown by the Supreme Court, on the argument of deviation from purpose. In the ministers’ understanding, it is not possible to grant forgiveness when there is a threat of physical aggression and incitement to the invasion of the headquarters of the three powers.
With this, Silveira permanently lost his mandate as a federal deputy, as decided in his trial.
Although there is such a precedent, Professor Juliana Gomes states that the Constitution does not prohibit, in particular, the use of forgiveness for cases of coup, as it does with other crimes, such as drug trafficking and violence against women.
According to her, the Supreme Court could deny the pardon to Bolsonaro because the constitution cannot be read in an opposite way to the preservation of democracy. “You have to wait to see what conditions the trial will take place, but the accusations against Bolsonaro are more severe than those of Silveira.”
The pressure for a pardon to the former president has increased in recent weeks. In an interview with SheetSenator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ), the eldest son of the former Mandanician, said that in fighting the supreme for pardon, using force if necessary.
Professor of Constitutional Law at PUC-SP, Gabriela Zancaner provides a acute phase in the crisis between executive and judiciary. After all, the former president has much greater popularity than Silveira.
“People see some decisions of the supreme as arbitrary, but our constitution says that one power regulates the other,” she says. “It is natural for the Supreme Court to exercise this control as long as it is provided by law.”
In the presidency, it caused crises between the powers, and stimulated with lies and yields a campaign to discredit the country’s electoral system.
After the defeat to Lula, he encouraged the creation and maintenance of the scammers who spread across the country and gave rise to the attacks of January 8.
In this same period, he adopted conduct that he contributed to keeping his hopeless supporters that he would remain in power, and he met with nearby military and advisers to discuss ways to intervene in the TSE and nullify the elections.
For political scientist Aldo Fornazieri, from FESPSP (São Paulo School of Sociology and Politics Foundation), the theme will be a dominant agenda in the electoral race. All right-wing candidates have already pledged to grant the pardon. “No one is crazy to waste Bolsonaro’s support,” he says.
However, he does not rule out that there is a negotiation between STF and Executive to prevent the decision on the fate of the former president causes a crisis between the powers. In any case, the insistence on pardon at this time means an alternative to the amnesty project, standing in Congress.
“The pardon is more feasible, because it is the president’s prerogative, it is not law. I think there will be a great pressure in the election and the right tends to overcome it, because the Lula government is without command, a mess,” says the political scientist.
