Brazilian police indict Bolsonaro for alleged attempted coup, threatening his political career

Former President Bolsonaro and 36 others indicted for coup attempt to stay in power, facing potential jail time.

Police indicted Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro and 36 others for allegedly attempting a coup to keep the right-wing leader in office after his defeat in the 2022 election. Already barred from running again in 2026 for a different case, he could now land in jail and see his influence further diminished.

Brazil's federal police said the sealed findings in Thursday's indictment were being delivered to Brazil’s Supreme Court, which will refer them to Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet, who will decide whether to formally charge Bolsonaro and put him on trial, or toss the investigation.

Gonet is already under pressure from his legal peers to move forward with the various investigations related to the ex-president, local media have reported. And politicians say if Bolsonaro does stand trial at the Supreme Court there will be a race among his allies and rivals to seize his influence with voters.

“Bolsonaro is no longer the sole leader of the right-wing. He is coming out of mayoral elections in which most of his candidates lost. All these probes don't help him at all,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at the Insper university in Sao Paulo.

Melo added that “the governor of Sao Paulo, Tarcisio de Freitas, the radical candidate for Sao Paulo mayorship Pablo Marcal, the governor of Goias state, Ronaldo Caiado ... There are politicians lining up to court Bolsonaro voters.”

Bolsonaro told the website Metropoles that he was waiting for his lawyer to review the indictment, reportedly about 700 pages long. But he said he would fight the case and dismissed the investigation as being the result of “creativity.”

The former president has denied all claims he tried to stay in office after his narrow electoral defeat in 2022 to leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro has faced a series of legal threats since then.