Brazilian police say Bolsonaro has staged a coup to stay in office

SAO PAULO (AP) — of Brazil At the end of November, the Federal Police officially charged former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro and 36 others plans a coup to keep him in office. The agency described a multi-step scheme backed by evidence and testimony in an 884-page report.

The plan included systematically sowing distrust in the electoral system among the population, drafting a decree to give the plot a legal basis, pressuring top military personnel to comply with the plan, and inciting a riot in the capital.

Attorney General Paulo Gonet will now decide whether to formally charge the accused parties, shut down the investigation or ask for more testimony to understand each person’s participation in different parts of the alleged plot before deciding who will be tried on what counts. Bolsonaro and his main allies have denied any wrongdoing or involvement and accuse the authorities of political persecution.

Here’s a breakdown of the key elements of the plan as they appear in the report and how they’re supposed to be connected.

Sowing doubts about Brazil’s voting system

Police say efforts to spread fake news about Brazil’s electronic voting system began in 2019, Bolsonaro’s first year in office, but have been carried out. more strategically and intensely as his 2022 re-election bid neared.

Police say so-called “digital militias” made up of thousands of social media accounts linked to pro-Bolsonaro propaganda, as well as other prominent right-wing influencers and politicians, have spread propaganda claiming the voting system could be tampered with. Bolsonaro has openly expressed his admiration for Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985), which he claimed saved the country from communism.

The narrative of imminent illegitimate electoral defeat helped Bolsonaro rally tens of thousands of supporters to several street demonstrations and also rally many to set up camp outside military barracks and headquarters to pressure the the leaders.

Three months before the elections, Bolsonaro invited dozens of diplomats to the presidential palace for a nationally televised meeting in which he presented alleged vulnerabilities in the voting system without providing any evidence.

After Bolsonaro’s 2022 loss to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party questionable results to the country’s first electoral court, arguing that voting devices made in certain years could have allowed fraud. The electoral court quickly rejected the claims.

“They circulated fake studies on the vulnerabilities of electronic voting machines through the Liberal Party in an attempt to create a factual basis for a presidential decree” to set the coup in motion, the report said.

A draft decree to set the coup in motion

In January 2023, Brazilian police found a draft decree in his home Bolsonaro’s former justice minister, Anderson Torres. It was one of many versions concocted either at the far-right leader’s behest or with his knowledge, police said. The former president presented the document, unsigned, to the commanders of the three divisions of the armed forces on December 7, seeking their support.

Investigators say the draft decree shows that Bolsonaro and his allies sought to create a committee to investigate alleged fraud and crimes in the October 2022 vote so they could later suspend the powers of the nation’s top electoral court and possibly convene new elections.

The navy commander was ready to comply with the decree, but army and air force leaders opposed any plan to prevent Lula’s inauguration, the report said. Those refusals are why the plan didn’t go forward, according to witnesses who spoke to investigators.

Many legal experts, incl evidence says that the former president presented the draft to the military leaders and argued for different versions of the document are very harmful.

“(The aim) was to interfere unjustifiably in the election,” said Luiz Henrique Machado, a law professor at IDP University in the capital Brasilia. “In Brazil, the Electoral Prosecutor’s Office and the Superior Electoral Court have the final say on electoral legislation.”

In an interview with the UOL website published Thursday, Bolsonaro said he had discussed with military leaders the moves, including declaring a state of emergency and other exceptional measures that would have suspended the rule of law for the public good. He said such measures are provided for in the constitution, so they exist nothing inappropriate in evaluating these options.

“What is being said is absurd. From my side, there was never any discussion about a coup,” Bolsonaro told journalists on Monday in Brasilia.

Plan to assassinate the president-elect

On November 19, Brazil’s Federal Police arrested four army special operations officers and a federal police officer accused of plotting in 2022 to assassinate Lula, Vice President-elect Geraldo Alckmin and the Supreme Court. Judge Alexandre de Moraes. The men arrested were all named in a police report that was later unsealed.

The assassination plot sought to leave Bolsonaro’s ticket as the only valid one left in the 2022 tour, police said. As for de Moraes, he led a five-year investigation into fake news and threats against Supreme Court justices that led to some far-right allies and supporters being banned from social media and even jailed. In early 2023, he presided over the nation’s highest electoral court when he declared Bolsonaro ineligible for office until 2030 on the abuse of power related to a meeting he called with foreign ambassadors to spread lies about the voting system.

General Walter Braga Netto, Bolsonaro’s 2022 candidate and former defense minister, green-lighted the assassination plan at a meeting with conspirators at his home, investigators added. The Federal Police describe the retired general as one of the ringleaders of the plot, also involved in pressuring military leaders to sign off on the coup.

Braga Netto said in a statement on Tuesday that he never plotted a coup. He added that several of the documents seized from one of his advisers, including “writings, drafts and press reports” were “preparatory material to respond to media requests and to prepare for testimony in congressional hearings.”

The police report contains no indication that any assassination attempt on Lula or Alckmin was set in motion. However, the investigators found messages and documents indicating that the plotters were monitoring and following de Moraes at the time.

Police said they found evidence that Brig. General Mário Fernandes, one of the arrested officers who was acting secretary general of the presidency, also visited protest camps outside military installations, including the army headquarters in Brasilia. Investigators said they have evidence that he gave instructions and financial support to the protesters.

the revolt of January 8

The Federal Police tied up Bolsonaro and some of his top ministers the revolt of January 8, 2023 in which supporters of the former president, many of whom camped outside the army headquarters on Monday, ransacked the Supreme Court, Congress and the presidential palace in Brasilia.

The protesters pleaded for the armed forces to keep the leftist leader out of office, and their revolt – which came after Lula was sworn in – was an attempt to force military intervention and oust the new president, police said.

The revolt appears in the report as one of several “other actions to pressure the army chief to join the coup”. The police also say that Brig. General Fernandes sent a message in November 2022 to General Marco Antônio Freire Gomes, then Army Commander, discussing the need for a “trigger event” for a coup.

The defendants, including Bolsonaro, claimed that the riot was an isolated eventand many legal experts noted that the report’s evidence of a link between it and a wider plot was weak.

“It is clear that the alleged coup plotters had contacts with people camped outside the military barracks, people who were there on January 8. But how much of that contact was turned into planning, coordination, incentive for those people to take public buildings that day. ? It must be debated, it will be discussed during the trial and the collection of more evidence,” said João Pedro Pádua, professor of criminal procedures at Universidade Federal Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro.

Bolsonaro went to the United States days before Lula’s inauguration on January 1, 2023, and stayed there for three months, keeping a low profile. The police report claims he was avoiding possible jail time related to the coup plot and was awaiting the aftermath of the riot.

___

Hughes reported from Rio de Janeiro.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america