Brazilians hail strength of judiciary

Admin

February 22, 2025
2 min read

Brazilians have celebrated the strength of the nation’s judiciary and institutions after former president Jail Bolsonaro faces potential jail time for his alleged role in plotting a coup. They highlight the contrast with the failures in the US to bring Donald Trump to justice for his role in the riots in 2021 as well as his other anti-democratic acts.

“In Brazil coup-mongers go to jail. In the US they get back into the White House,” said Marcelo Freixo, a leading left-wing politician. His comments came after Brazil’s attorney general formally accused Bolsonaro of engineering a conspiracy to hold on to office even after losing the 2022 election.

For the alleged crimes, including his participation in an attempted coup, an armed criminal association, and violent attempts to abolish rule of law in Brazil, Bolsonaro faces a potential prison sentence of over 40 years. Trump on the other hand, has returned to the White House to begin his second term as president, despite his alleged role in the January 2021 riots on the Capitol Building in Washington DC.

“In the US Trump encouraged an attempted coup through the storming of the Capitol and emerged unpunished. In Brazil Bolsonaro led an attempted coup and he is going to jail,” said Freixo who called the South American nation “a more serious democracy than the US”.

Freixo was not alone. Brazilians were treated to a shocking 272-page indictment which revealed how close their country came to a violent military rupture after Bolsonaro’s defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022.

Progressive Brazilians celebrated how the judiciary and police in the South American country was successful in holing the former president accountable, in contrast to the US.

“Here in Brazil the institutions did their job defending democracy,” Freixo said. “We’ve always been told that North American institutions are really strong – but the institutions that showed themselves to be truly strong were the Brazilian ones, which did not allow a coup to take place.”

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