A majority of judges of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil that review the positions against former president Jair Bolsonaro They voted on Wednesday in favor of being tried for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the government after he lost the 2022 elections.
The first three members of a panel of five judges voted in favor of prosecuting Bolsonaro. If it is convicted in a trial that is expected for later in the year, Bolsonaro could face a long prison sentence of more than two decades.
In his opening speech on Wednesday, Judge Alexandre de Moraes, who supervises the case, He projected dramatic images of Bolsonaro supporters assaulting government buildings in violent scenes that developed just a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in January 2023.
Bolsonaro, a retirement captain of the extreme right -wing army who was president of Brazil between 2019 and 2022, is accused of five crimesamong them an alleged attempt to violently abolish the democratic state of law and a coup d’etat.
Moraes said Bolsonaro led “a systematic effort to question electronic voting machines” used in Brazil, Part of his efforts to undermine the elections he lost.
The Supreme Federal Court began to review the charges against Bolsonaro and seven of its closest allies on Tuesday in a session that Bolsonaro participated voluntarily, sitting in silence in the first row in an echo of the trial of US President Donald Trump last year.
Before the historic judicial hearing, Bolsonaro convened a rally in front of the sea in Rio de Janeiro, hoping to take advantage of Lula’s diminishing popularity and press Congress to approve an amnesty bill that favors him and his imprisoned supporters.
The demonstration, which some allies suggested that it could attract more than one million supporters, It was widely considered a failure after two independent poll companies discovered that they only went between 20,000 and 30,000 people.
Bolsonaro has insisted that the presidential elections of next year be presented againdespite a judgment of the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil that prohibits him from presenting public office until 2030 for his efforts to discredit the country’s voting system.
