BRASÍLIA — Brazilian lawmakers have approved legislation that could reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro will spend in prison for attempting a military coup after he lost the 2022 election.
If the legislation, approved by Brazil’s Federal Senate on Wednesday, survives an expected presidential veto, Bolsonaro, 70, could be transferred from prison to house arrest as early as 2028.
The right-wing former Army officer was convicted by Brazil’s Supreme Court in September of trying to subvert the South American nation’s young democracy to stay in power after his defeat. The attempt culminated in thousands of his supporters storming Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace in Brasília in January 2023.
Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison. He began serving his sentence last month in a special cell at a federal police facility in the capital.
Under Brazilian law, some inmates may, after serving a portion of their sentences behind bars, be upgraded to a semi-open regime, in which they are allowed to leave prison during the day to work or study and return at night, or be transferred to house arrest.
Under the legislation, two of the charges of which Bolsonaro was convicted — attempting a coup and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law — would, when committed “in the same context,” be considered a single offense, shortening his sentence to 20 years, nine months and the mandatory time served in prison for crimes against democracy would be reduced from 25 percent to 16 percent.
Bolsonaro was also convicted of involvement in an armed criminal organization, aggravated damage to state property and deterioration of protected heritage.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the leftist who defeated Bolsonaro in 2022, is expected to veto the legislation. “I will do what I understand must be done, because he has to pay for the attempted coup, for the attempt to destroy the democracy of this country,” he told the local channel TV Alterosa in Minas Gerais last week. But the votes in both chambers of Congress indicated enough support to override such a veto.
The legislation would not grant Bolsonaro the full legal amnesty he has sought, but it might help him return home sooner.
His original sentence requires him to serve six to eight years in prison before he could be transferred to less-restrictive detention. The new legislation would cut that time to as little as two years and four months.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who presided over Bolsonaro’s trial, warned Tuesday that reducing the sentence would send the message that Brazil “tolerates, or will tolerate, new flirtations with attacks on democracy.”
“It is no longer possible to engage in rhetoric about mitigating sentences, sentences imposed after due process of law and after full opportunity for the defense,” he told a court hearing.
Bolsonaro’s lawyers have repeatedly asked the Supreme Court to allow him to serve his full sentence under house arrest, citing his health. Bolsonaro was stabbed while campaigning for president in 2018 and has since undergone six surgeries. He has complained of frequent bouts of vomiting and persistent hiccups.
A movement in Congress to reduce Bolsonaro’s sentence, launched even before he was convicted, had waned in recent weeks. But it regained momentum last week after Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, his oldest son, said the former president was backing his bid to challenge Lula for the presidency in 2026.
That news irked right-wing and centrist leaders in Congress, who prefer São Paulo Gov. Tarcísio de Freitas to take on Lula next year. Flávio said he would be willing to withdraw his candidacy if lawmakers approved amnesty for his father.
President Donald Trump, a Bolsonaro ally, called his prosecution a “witch hunt,” imposed sanctions on de Moraes, his wife and others, and raised tariffs on Brazilian products — an unusual intervention in another democracy’s judicial processes. Since a meeting with Lula last month on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Trump has eased the tariffs and last week lifted the sanctions.
The version of the legislation that was approved by the conservative Chamber of Deputies last week would have benefited not only Bolsonaro but also inmates convicted of sexual offenses, environmental crimes and corruption. That drew sharp criticism from legal analysts; thousands of Brazilians poured in the streets to protest.
Forty-seven percent of Brazilians oppose reducing Bolsonaro’s sentence, the national pollster Queast reported Wednesday. Forty-three percent support it.
The Senate moved to limit the people affected by the legislation to those convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 8, 2023, insurrection.
After years in which Bolsonaro portrayed Brazil’s elections as untrustworthy, his supporters stormed the Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace in Brasília in a failed effort to overturn the election results. Bolsonaro was convicted as the chief plotter behind the acts that culminated in the attack.
Allies of Lula said they would ask the Supreme Court to challenge the adjustment to ensure that the legislation followed constitutional process.
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