On Thursday, Brazilian police confiscated the former President Jair Bolsonaro´s passport and then proceeded to accuse him of editing a draft decree to overturn election results, pressuring military chiefs to join a coup attempt and plotting to jail a Supreme Court justice. These allegations took the country by storm but were formed from previous knowledge from the last elections where a probe went into Bolsonaro and his inner circle for allegedly plotting a military coup after his electoral loss to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2022. This altercation also resulted in search warrants against 4 former ministers as well as arrests of 4 former aides to Bolsonaro. This is a bad look as Bolsonaro was a populist-right minded president and had taken a liking to Donald Trump. Even after Bolsonaro lost power the police remain determined to track him down as well as all he had planned for when he was president as they have not only been tracking him down but also any ally. Search warrants were issued for properties linked to Walter Braga Netto, Bolsonaro former running mate; Augusto Heleno, his former national security adviser; former Defense Minister Paulo Nogueira Batista and former Justice Minister Anderson Torres, among others.
This article has major implications for Brazil as well as creates a little bit of uncertainty as the population is left wondering what was really going on when Bolsonaro was in power. Almost all property he owns has been fully searched by police and the country is left looking to see when news will break of any wrongdoing. This happened because he was only in power for 3 years and after becoming wildly unpopular and knowing that he would lose the next election Bolsonaro decided to rig the election. This event leads to the people not trusting him and the police left to find any other shady plans or deals Bolsonaro had going on. No country wants to see news like this especially coming from your former president just one year after he isn’t in power but it does show the people picked the right person to reelect.
This relates to what we’ve been talking about in class because if you look at the moves that Bolsonaro pulled, they would probably go unnoticed in North Korea. But, because of the democratic state that Brazil is in they were able to vote him out of power and realize the flaws in his system.