He is the first of the great leaders of the wave of populist authoritarians of the 21st century. Its international allies remain not only free, but firm.
In , he returned to the Presidency before the trial of his cases disrupted his electoral plans. In , he is preparing for a difficult election, but the 15 years he has in power could be an asset to guarantee his permanence as prime minister.
Meanwhile, Bolsonaro will spend his days, it seems, in a city. It is worth asking: why did the former president have a different fate than his peers?
Firstly, maintaining an independent Supreme Court was essential to enforce the law and punish the democratic threat. Political scientists who study the quality of democracies usually identify the Judiciary as the last bastion against the advances of an autocrat.
It was not, of course, for lack of trying. Bolsonaro and his allies failed to advance the agenda of the ministers of the (Supreme Federal Court) in Congress. Before the second round of the 2022 elections, it is worth remembering, the former president stated that he had received projects to increase the number of court ministers and that he could discuss the issue with Parliament after the election.
Bolsonaro, however, went that year (and had no support from the military leadership for a coup attempt). The co-optation of the Judiciary did not get off the ground. This was another fundamental difference that divided the destinies of the former president and his global allies: Bolsonaro had a single term.
There is a consensus among researchers on the subject that leaders who try to undermine the democratic system through which they were elected are much more successful in this endeavor as their terms of office advance. In the early years, the aspiring autocrat prepares the ground. Then, with the structure ready (generally a legal framework that can give an air of legitimacy to its actions), it begins to put into practice the most authoritarian measures.
This was the case with Trump, who in 2020 did not find the 11,780 votes he said he needed in the state of Georgia to win the elections. Until the 2024 election, he was prosecuted, but not tried, for having tried to meet them in an undemocratic way, putting pressure on the Secretary of State.
Finally, Trump defeated and, once again in the Presidency, he has acted in a more authoritarian manner than in his first term – trying to fill public bodies with employees loyal to him, dismantling the Department of Justice, seeking to control universities and law firms and hunting down immigrants without due process.
It also harmed Bolsonaro’s anti-democratic advances that he did not have a large majority in Congress. In this sense, coalition presidentialism served as an antidote to these abuses.
Other leaders, such as Viktor Orbán and , were lucky enough to reach their first term with Parliament in hand. Thus, the Hungarian rewrote the Constitution, dominated the Judiciary and expelled critical institutions from the country. Also with Congress, Bukele co-opted the Judiciary through the dismissal of ministers (which allowed re-election, previously prohibited) and, in the following term, guaranteed the possibility of being re-elected indefinitely.
As it is unprecedented in this new phase of authoritarian populist rise, it is not known what effects Bolsonaro’s arrest will have on the reconstruction of democracy in the country.
On the one hand, it can signal the institutions’ commitment to democracy and inhibit further authoritarian advances. On the other hand, it is not enough (and does not intend to be) to change the conditions that allowed Bolsonaro to come to power — an electorate that distrusts institutions, traditional politics and the State’s ability to meet basic demands.
The former president’s arrest leaves a vacuum that can be taken advantage of by another politician with similar tendencies, and the 2026 elections are just around the corner.
