BOLSONARO ON TRIAL
A historic test for Brazilian democracy
Authorities have reinforced security around the Supreme Court and restricted access to Brasília’s Three Powers Plaza, where all branches of government are headquartered. Photo: Marcelo Camargo/EBC
Since returning to democracy in the 1980s, Brazil has impeached two presidents, held a landmark Supreme Court trial over a sprawling corruption scheme that involved buying off Congress, and sent a former president to prison for graft and money laundering — before overturning those convictions later. And yet, the country has never quite seen something like the trial of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president accused of leading a conspiracy to overturn the 2022 election.
For a country where coups and authoritarian detours have often ended in amnesty, the trial represents a historic departure: the first time in Brazil’s republican history that a coup attempt has reached the highest court in the land. It is an unequivocal sign that…
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