In September 2018, Jair Bolsonaro was campaigning in Juiz de Fora when a 40-year-old man pushed through a crowd and stabbed him in the stomach. Images of Bolsonaro doubled over in pain, wearing a Brazil football shirt, spread instantly across social media and television, shocking the country. The attack turned him into a symbol of resilience, boosted his outsider image, and helped propel him to victory weeks later.
Seven years on, Brazil’s Supreme Court has found him guilty of plotting a coup and sentenced him to more than 27 years in prison. On paper, this verdict ends his political career. Yet Bolsonaro remains one of the most influential figures of recent decades, with allies already calling for amnesty, leaving open the possibility of a political comeback.
Bolsonaro’s path to power was unusual. A former army captain, he left the military in the 1980s after disputes over pay and allegations of plotting bombings during protests, charges for which he was acquitted. He spent three decades as a congressman, known more for incendiary remarks and his defense of Brazil’s former military dictatorship than for legislative achievements. In interviews, he openly praised authoritarian rule and once declared that, if president, he would stage a coup on his first day and kill 30,000 people, beginning with then-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
For years, Bolsonaro was dismissed by Brazil’s political establishment as a fringe figure. But by 2018, the country was reeling from five years of crises: mass protests, a deep recession, the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, and the sweeping Car Wash corruption investigation. The scandal damaged politicians across parties but hit hardest the Workers’ Party of Rousseff and Lula da Silva. When Lula was jailed on corruption charges in April 2018, many Brazilians felt every politician was compromised.
Bolsonaro seized the moment. Using social media rather than traditional campaign machinery, he united a coalition of conservative evangelicals, elements of the police and military, far-right militants, disillusioned middle-class voters, and frustrated business sectors. Most importantly, millions of ordinary citizens wanted change and saw him as the outsider who could deliver it.
In October 2018, that coalition carried him to power. His presidency was unlike any in Brazil since the return to democracy in the 1980s. Now, with his conviction, the courts may have ended his political journey, but his shadow still looms over the country’s future.
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