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Brazil’s highest court has delivered its most decisive blow yet against former president Jair Bolsonaro, unanimously rejecting his appeal to overturn a 27-year prison sentence for plotting to remain in power after losing the 2022 presidential election.
The ruling, issued Friday by a four-member panel of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), cements Bolsonaro’s conviction for crimes that judges said “sought to violently subvert democracy.” Justice Flávio Dino, joined by Alexandre de Moraes, Cristiano Zanin, and Cármen Lúcia, voted to uphold the verdict. The fifth seat on the panel remains vacant.
Bolsonaro, who denies wrongdoing, will not begin serving the sentence until all procedural appeals are exhausted—something court officials say could happen before year-end. He has been under house arrest since August for violating precautionary measures tied to his earlier efforts to solicit political interference abroad.
In September, the same justices sentenced him to 27 years and three months for five crimes, including attempting to abolish democracy by force, leading an armed organization, and orchestrating a coup. Prosecutors argued that Bolsonaro and his allies plotted to pressure the military into overturning the 2022 vote that brought Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva back to power.
The case has stirred global attention. Human-rights advocates hailed the verdict as a milestone for democratic accountability in Latin America, while Bolsonaro’s supporters claim political persecution. Former U.S. president Donald Trump called the case a “witch hunt” and claimed to have retaliated with new tariffs on Brazilian imports—an assertion unverified by official U.S. sources.
For Brazil, the decision underscores the strength—and strain—of its institutions three years after the January 8 riots that echoed Washington’s own Capitol attack. Crowds of Bolsonaro loyalists once sought to storm government buildings; now, their leader faces the possibility of spending decades confined.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw much of the investigation, said in his opinion that “impunity for those who undermine democracy invites its repetition.” The STF’s ruling, he wrote, “is not vengeance; it is the defense of the Republic.”
Outside Brasília, reactions were mixed. Demonstrators gathered both in celebration and in anger near the Supreme Court plaza, separated by barricades and riot police. “It is a test of Brazil’s endurance as a democracy,” said a political historian at the University of São Paulo. “For the first time, accountability has reached the very top.”
Whether Bolsonaro ultimately serves time in prison remains to be seen, but the symbolism is unmistakable: Brazil’s institutions, once derided as weak, are asserting themselves with the full weight of law.
