Bolsonaro conviction: How Brazil’s ex-president might never see the inside of a prison cell

BRASÍLIA, Sept 13 — Brazilian ex-president Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup.

AFP looks at what’s next for the far-right leader and how his dramatic conviction could impact next year’s election.

Will Bolsonaro go straight to prison?

The 70-year-old former army captain cannot be imprisoned “until all legal avenues of appeal have been exhausted,” Thiago Bottino, a professor of penal law at the Getulio Vargas Foundation told AFP.

A Supreme Court source explained that a summary of the judgment must first be approved by the court – a formality – on Sept 23. The court then has 60 days to publish its deliberations in full.

Only then can Bolsonaro appeal, as his lawyers have confirmed he will.

He can either appeal to the same five-judge Supreme Court panel that convicted him, citing technical reasons. He could also appeal to the full bench on the case’s merits, although it is deemed unlikely that the court would accept the appeal.

Bolsonaro, who has been under house arrest since August, could also ask to serve his sentence at home for health reasons.

He is still suffering the after-effects of a stabbing on the campaign trail in 2018, which left him with severe abdominal injuries.

In May, another former president, Fernando Collor de Mello, was given permission to serve his nearly nine-year sentence for corruption at home, on grounds of ill health.

Could he be eligible for amnesty? 

Bolsonaro’s lawmaker son Flavio said Thursday that his father’s allies would try with “all their might” to get Congress to adopt an amnesty bill that would save his father from prison.

The law would also apply to hundreds of the former leader’s supporters convicted over the January 2023 storming of government buildings and the Supreme Court in Brasilia.

Pro-Bolsonaro lawmaker Luciano Zucco told AFP the bill could be put to a vote “as of next week.”

Even if it were to pass, left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the target of the alleged coup plot, could veto it.

Meanwhile, at least two Supreme Court judges have already warned that the crimes for which Bolsonaro was convicted make him ineligible for amnesty.

Who will lead the right into 2026 elections? 

Even before his conviction, Bolsonaro had been banned by Brazil’s electoral court from running for re-election until 2030, over his unproven fraud allegations against the country’s voting system.

He had nonetheless hoped to have that decision overturned in time to run for a second term in October 2026.

While his chances of being on the ballot look slim, his closest allies insist he is still their candidate.

Behind the scenes, however, a succession race is well underway.

The man most often mentioned as a potential successor is Tarcisio de Freitas, governor of Sao Paulo state who served as infrastructure minister under Bolsonaro.

If elected president, Freitas says, his first act would be to pardon Bolsonaro.

Mayra Goulart, a political scientist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro warned this kind of discourse “could alienate more moderate voters.”

What does Bolsonaro’s conviction mean for Lula? 

Lula’s support was languishing before US President Donald Trump waded into Bolsonaro’s trial, imposing 50-percent tariffs on a range of Brazilian imports as punishment for the “witch hunt” against his ally.

Opinion polls now show Brazil’s 79-year-old leader – who styles himself the guarantor of the country’s sovereignty in the face of US meddling – with a 33 per cent approval rating, up four points in a month.

On Thursday, he told local radio he had not yet decided whether to run for what would be his fourth term as president, after serving two terms from 2003 to 2010.

But in recent months he has clearly demonstrated his appetite for four more years. —  AFP