how Brazil’s Bolsonaro tried to cling to power

For months before Brazil’s most recent presidential election, hints and warnings mounted that then-president Jair Bolsonaro was plotting a coup to stay in power.

An explosive federal police investigation this week revealed just how close Latin America’s largest nation came to a democratic rupture.

Documents released by police and the country’s supreme court on Thursday allege that military officers and political allies of the former president in 2022 developed a detailed plot to overturn the results of the election, which Bolsonaro lost to leftwing leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Senior military leaders would have deployed “troops on the ground”, police said, as part of the scheme. The coup leaders would have arrested judicial and congressional leaders, sought to discredit military officers opposed to the coup, and finally enshrined Bolsonaro’s right to stay in power.

The plot was developed in the run-up to the October 2022 election, but was formalised shortly after Lula’s victory with a draft decree outlining the plans.

“The police released a lot of evidence showing there was a real plan for a coup. There were draft plans discussed by the president and military officers and there were discussions of logistics and financing,” said Bruno Carazza, a professor at the Dom Cabral foundation.

“As the coup was already being openly discussed, the next stage would have been the actual attempt.”

The documents were released on Thursday as dozens of federal police raided the homes of military officers who served in the far-right Bolsonaro administration between 2019-22.

Three aides of the former president were arrested and Bolsonaro himself was ordered to surrender his passport, which he subsequently did. He has denied any wrongdoing.

The investigation’s most prominent target was Almir Garnier, head of the navy during the Bolsonaro…