The lower house and Senate of Brazil’s Congress voted Thursday to override President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s veto, finalizing a bill that sharply reduces the 27-year prison term of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro for plotting a coup. The legislation, approved by lawmakers last year, changes criminal sentencing rules so that when a person is convicted of multiple crimes—including crimes against the democratic rule of law and leading a coup—the punishment is based solely on the highest count. Analysts told The Associated Press the move could shave up to 20 years off Bolsonaro’s sentence.
Bolsonaro, convicted of leading the Jan. 8, 2023, attempt to overturn his election loss, is currently under house arrest. The conservative opposition, bolstered by centrist lawmakers, comfortably secured the override.
Senator Espiridião Amin, a Bolsonaro ally, hailed the vote as an opening to broader clemency. “This is a first and much awaited step by those who are afflicted. The next stage is full amnesty,” Amin said.
Lula’s Workers’ Party immediately signaled a legal challenge. Pedro Uczai, the party’s whip in the lower house, said he will ask the Supreme Court to annul the law as unconstitutional. The court has not yet received the petition.
Legal scholar Alexandre Knopfholz told the AP that while the bill could also reduce penalties for supporters who rioted and destroyed government buildings in Brasilia—actions that mirrored the 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol—Bolsonaro “will not be automatically released” even if the new law survives judicial scrutiny.
The vote capped a punishing 24 hours for Lula, whose nominee for a Supreme Court seat was rejected by the Senate a day earlier—the first time in 132 years a president’s pick has been refused. Congressman Lindberg Farias, a Lula ally, called the override “a day of infamy.” “They want to release Bolsonaro, his jailed generals and stop federal police investigations that implicate them,” Farias said.
With October’s presidential election approaching, the override strengthens the hand of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s son and Lula’s main rival. “If it is God’s will, I will govern this country,” Flávio Bolsonaro said during the vote. “I will hug you and take care of you, no matter what your political view is.”
Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo, said the vote confirmed Bolsonaro’s lasting relevance. “This is another sign that Bolsonaro is not finished as a political actor, his son will be competitive against Lula,” Melo said, though he added that the upcoming World Cup could shift public attention in the months ahead.