Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has vetoed a bill to reduce the prison sentence of his right-wing rival and predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted of plotting a coup.
On Thursday, Lula made good on a promise to block the bill, which was passed by Brazil’s opposition-controlled Congress last year.
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“We have no right to forget the past in the name of the future,” Lula wrote in a series of social media posts, saying that doing so would have benefited “those who attacked Brazil’s democracy.”
The veto was issued on the third anniversary of the 2023 attack on the Plaza de la Trinidad in the capital Brasilia, which houses government buildings representing the president, parliament and supreme court.
On January 8 of that year, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the building, apparently trying to provoke a military response to remove Lula from power.
To commemorate the anniversary of the attack, Lula called on Brazilians to stand up for the young democracy that began after a period of violent dictatorship in the late 20th century.
“January 8th goes down in history as the day of the victory of democracy. A victory over those who ignored the will of the people expressed at the ballot box and tried to seize power by force. A victory over those who have always championed dictatorship, torture and extermination of the opposition,” Lula wrote online.
“The attempted coup on January 8, 2023, reminded us that democracy is not an unchallenged achievement.”
Bolsonaro’s verdict
The January 8 attack saw police and protesters clash in Government Square, causing millions of dollars in property damage and dozens of injuries.
The incident drew comparisons to the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when supporters of President Donald Trump tried to disrupt the certification of his 2020 election loss.
Similarly, Bolsonaro, a former army captain, refused to concede defeat to Lula after narrowly losing the 2022 election.
Instead, he and his allies challenged the election results in court, arguing that Brazil’s electronic voting machines were susceptible to fraud. However, their petition was rejected due to a “total lack of evidence”.
Still, many of Bolsonaro’s supporters supported his claims and took to the streets to protest the election results. The weeks leading up to Lula’s inauguration in January 2023 were turbulent, with bomb threats and reports of an attack on police headquarters in Brasilia.
Prosecutors later accused Bolsonaro and his allies of leading a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election results.
One option the defendants are said to have considered is to declare a “state of siege” in Brazil, which would mean the military would seize power and hold new elections. Another option was reportedly to assassinate Lula and his running mate, Gerard Alkmin.
Mr. Bolsonaro has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has denied any wrongdoing, instead framing the charges as a political blow job.
Yet in September, he was found guilty and sentenced to 27 years in prison for attempted coups, damaging public property, attempting to violently overthrow the democratic rule of law, participating in a criminal enterprise, and desecrating a designated heritage site.
His sentence began in November after he was found to have damaged an ankle monitor used to ensure he was not a flight risk.
Considering October election
However, conservative politicians have criticized the sentence as too long and are calling for it to be commuted.
Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo has petitioned the US Trump administration to intervene on behalf of the imprisoned former president, and his eldest son, Flavio Bolsonaro, has even suggested he might cancel his 2026 presidential bid if his father is released.
On December 10, Brazil’s lower house of parliament passed a bill commuting the sentences of approximately 1,000 people related to the January 8 attack, including Bolsonaro.
A week later, on December 17, the Senate followed suit and sent the leniency bill to the president for his signature.
But Lula had repeatedly vowed to veto the bill, risking the possibility that Brazil’s Congress could override his veto.
“This is truly a litmus test in Brazilian politics,” journalist and Brazil Report founder Gustavo Ribeiro told Al Jazeera. “Conservatives overwhelmingly supported it, but liberals were adamantly opposed.”
Still, Ribeiro said the bill was a compromise between Brazil’s centre-right and far-right forces.
“The centre-right tried to find some kind of centrist solution, not a full pardon, but one that would allow Mr Bolsonaro to be released after two years from what is known in Brazil as a semi-open sentence,” he explained.
He points out that Bolsonaro remains a popular figure on the right and sees Brazil’s general elections in October as a key factor in Congress passing the bill.
“Mr. Bolsonaro has so much influence over conservatives that many in Congress, many on the centre-right, are worried that if they don’t fully support whatever cause Mr. Bolsonaro champions, he will lose support,” Ribeiro said.
Lula is seeking a fourth term as president in October elections and is expected to face Bolsonaro’s son Flavio at the polls.
