Bolsonaro Begins Sentence Behind Bars As Downfall Deepens

A Brazilian Supreme Court judge ordered Jair Bolsonaro to begin serving his 27-year sentence behind bars, deepening a dramatic downfall for the former president who was convicted of plotting a coup after his 2022 election defeat.

Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Bolsonaro to start the sentence Tuesday, days after his weekend arrest for tampering with a court-mandated ankle monitor. He will remain in custody in a special cell at Federal Police headquarters in Brasilia, where he’s been held since Saturday, according to the judge’s order.

Bolsonaro was convicted in September of attempting to remain in power after his loss to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a plan that prosecutors said included a plot to assassinate Lula, his vice president and Moraes.

Bolsonaro, 70, had asked that judges allow him to serve the sentence under house arrest, citing his age and a litany of health problems that include a recent skin cancer diagnosis. Moraes, however, denied that request in a separate order Saturday, after Bolsonaro acknowledged that he’d taken a soldering iron to the ankle monitor out of “curiosity.” His defense team could still submit another request for house arrest.

Earlier Tuesday, Moraes declared the case closed. But in a social media post, Bolsonaro lawyer Paulo Cunha Bueno said the defense team was surprised by that decision and would consider additional appeals. 

The panel of judges overseeing Bolsonaro’s proceedings denied an initial appeal of the verdict on Nov. 7. The panel also upheld his preventive detainment Monday, after the former president told another judge he’d tampered with the monitor during a bout of “paranoia” induced by medications, and said he’d had hallucinations that there was a listening device inside.

The case against Bolsonaro, a close ally of President Donald Trump, stemmed from an investigation into the Jan. 8, 2023 insurrection attempt in Brasilia, where thousands of his supporters stormed federal buildings while urging the military to oust Lula a week after he took office. 

Bolsonaro and seven allies, including military personnel and former members of his cabinet, were found guilty of plotting the overthrow attempt.

The episode drew immediate comparisons to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in Washington following his loss to Joe Biden. 

The pair of leaders have long been linked: Two years after Trump’s 2016 victory, Bolsonaro surged from Brazil’s Congress to its presidency on a similar anti-establishment message. 

His rise earned him the nickname “Trump of the Tropics” because he had so closely modeled his political approach on the US leader, and he became the Latin American face of a brasher form of right wing identity politics that has made strides across the world.

But Bolsonaro has experienced a swift undoing since. In the months after he lost the narrowest election in Brazil’s modern history, the country’s electoral court slapped him with an eight-year ban from holding office for spreading conspiracy theories about fraud in electronic voting machines ahead of the vote.

As he sank deeper into legal trouble, Bolsonaro bet big on help from trump,, who this year placed punishing tariffs on Brazilian goods while demanding an end to the coup trial.

The US later added sanctions and visa restrictions on Brazilian officials and their family members. But the Supreme Court proceeded with the case, and the pressure campaign ultimately benefited Lula, whose approval ratings rose amid the dispute.

The two governments are now mending ties, and Trump’s interest in Bolsonaro’s plight appears to have waned. Last week, he granted major tariff relief to Brazil, another boost to the leftist Lula, who is now riding high less than a year before the country’s 2026 presidential election.

“That’s too bad,” Trump said upon hearing of Bolsonaro’s arrest Saturday, before moving to other topics.

The end of the case will also place focus on the long-running search for Bolsonaro's successor in next year’s elections. Centrist allies and investors have seen the start of his sentence as an inflection point that will force him to anoint an heir, with many eyeing Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas as the right’s best hope of beating an emboldened Lula.

But Freitas, who served as a minister in Bolsonaro’s government, has tiptoed cautiously around a potential bid, signaling that he’s only likely to challenge Lula with explicit support from his former boss. 

Bolsonaro, however, has so far refused to throw his weight behind Freitas or any other prospective candidate, instead insisting that he will run again despite his legal woes and the ban from seeking office.

Other members of his powerful political family — including former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro and Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, his eldest son — are also considered potential right-wing candidates.