By Luciana Magalhaes and Manuela Andreoni
BRASILIA (Reuters) -On paper, former President Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to prison until the age of 97.
In fact, legal experts say the ex-president is unlikely to spend more than a fraction of his 27-year sentence behind bars after the Brazilian Supreme Court found him guilty of plotting a coup to overturn the 2022 election he lost.
First, Brazilian convicts often serve just a sixth of their sentence under full custody before entering a day-release program. More importantly, the far-right firebrand’s allies have laid out plans to spring him in short order, working the levers of power in all three branches of government.
His political avenues to freedom include legislative amnesty, a presidential pardon after the 2026 election or efforts to reshape the Supreme Court through new appointments and the impeachment of sitting justices.
Those machinations in a country where public opinion is almost evenly split on Bolsonaro’s prison sentence are likely to keep his fate at the center of the political conversation even while he personally remains out of circulation.
For now, with Bolsonaro already under house arrest for allegedly courting pressure on the courts from U.S. President Donald Trump, his lawyers can push to at least keep him there instead of shifting him to prison once he has exhausted appeals.
In parallel, Bolsonaro’s allies have rallied behind an amnesty bill in Congress, building on the campaign to free hundreds of his supporters who stormed and vandalized government buildings in January 2023.
“A shortcut to achieving some form of justice … and bringing peace to Brazil would be through amnesty,” Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of the former president, told Reuters on the day his father was convicted last week. “Amnesty would wipe the slate clean.”
Still, the legality of such a move remains contentious. During Supreme Court deliberations last week, two justices argued that any attempt to pardon those convicted of plotting a coup would be unconstitutional.
Sao Paulo-based constitutional lawyer Vera Chemim said that legislative amnesty or a presidential pardon “could be declared unconstitutional … under the argument that crimes committed against the democratic rule of law are ineligible for grace or amnesty”.
That has not stopped Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, a leading Bolsonaro ally in the race for his endorsement for next year’s election, from vowing repeatedly to pardon the former leader if the governor were to become president.
After the court’s ruling on Thursday, the governor sprang to Bolsonaro’s defense, saying that the former president and others were victims of unjust and disproportionate sentences.
“History will take care of dismantling the narratives and justice will still prevail,” Freitas wrote on social media.
COURT IN FLUX
If Brazil’s Supreme Court puts up resistance to legislative or presidential clemency, the court’s own composition could shift dramatically by the end of the decade.
The next president’s term will see three of eleven Supreme Court justices retire, creating openings for new appointees to push the court to the right.
A super majority in the Senate would also allow the right-wing coalition forged by Bolsonaro to speed up the high court’s transformation by impeaching sitting justices, as many lawmakers have vowed to try repeatedly.
That shift could open the door to the court revisiting its decision, which would not be without precedent.
In 2021, the Supreme Court’s procedural review dismantled a graft conviction that had locked up President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for over 500 days, allowing him to run for office and beat Bolsonaro in 2022.
“The past is uncertain in Brazil, and the future is even more so,” said Thiago de Aragao, CEO of the Washington-based consulting group Arko International.
Trump may also apply more pressure on Brazil to open paths to Bolsonaro’s freedom. In July, Trump slapped hefty sanctions on Brazilian goods and sanctioned the Supreme Court judge overseeing the coup case.
Paulo Abrao, the executive director of the Washington Brazil Office, a progressive think tank, said there is a risk of Trump ramping up pressure during Brazilian elections next year in order to ensure a more friendly government in Brasilia.
“We’re better shielded now thanks to the experience of defending Brazilian democracy in 2022,” he said. “But this time there’s a well-coordinated push to undermine Brazil’s leadership as an independent player on the global stage.”
(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes and Manuela Andreoni in BrasiliaEditing by Brad Haynes and Alistair Bell)
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