Brazil's ex-air force chief reveals how he blocked Bolsonaro's 2022 coup attempt

In the closing weeks of his presidency, Jair Bolsonaro gathered the heads of Brazil's armed forces for a meeting he believed would change the course of the nation. Six weeks had passed since he lost the October 2022 election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He had not accepted the result. Now, with his time in office running out, he was ready to act.

The defence minister, General Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira, pulled a document from a plastic folder and distributed copies to the commanders of the navy, army, and air force. It was a draft decree—a legal instrument designed to annul Lula's victory and keep Bolsonaro in power. The proposal sat on the table, waiting for approval or rejection, consensus or a majority vote. For the first time, the machinery of a coup attempt was being laid bare in front of the men who would have to execute it.

Lieutenant Brigadier Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior, then head of the air force, read the document and understood immediately what it meant: the invalidation of an election, the overthrow of democratic process, the installation of an illegitimate government. He turned to the defence minister and spoke with precision. The air force would not participate. He stood and left the room. That refusal, along with the similar rejection by General Marco Antônio Gomes, the army commander, became the hinge on which the entire plot turned. Without the military's unified backing, the coup could not proceed.

Now, at sixty-five, retired and dressed in civilian clothes, Baptista Júnior has decided to tell the full story. His book, titled "I Said No! – An Anti-Coup Bulwark," arrives in mid-September, just weeks before a presidential election in which Lula faces Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president's son and a far-right senator. The timing has drawn accusations from Bolsonaro supporters that Baptista Júnior is attempting to influence the vote. He has made clear he will vote for neither candidate and criticizes both in the book. The publication date, he says, simply reflects the writing and editing schedule.

Baptista Júnior's motivation runs deeper than electoral politics. Despite the extensive investigation and trial that convicted Bolsonaro of attempting a coup, opinion polls show that roughly one-third of Brazil's population still does not believe the attempt occurred. The evidence presented at trial was abundant—testimony, documents, communications—yet doubt persists. The former air force commander believes his firsthand account might help close that gap. "Keeping in power someone who lost an election is a coup d'état," he said in an interview. The statement is simple, but it carries the weight of someone who stood at the moment of decision and chose differently.

The book reveals the full scope of Bolsonaro's efforts to cling to power. Baptista Júnior recounts more than a dozen meetings in which the president summoned military leaders to discuss ways to remain in office. At one meeting, he witnessed the army commander tell Bolsonaro directly: if you attempt an institutional rupture, I will have to arrest you. Both Freire Gomes and Bolsonaro later denied this exchange occurred, but Baptista Júnior stands by the account. It is not something, he writes, that anyone present would forget.

The coup investigation also uncovered a parallel plot, one even more sinister: army special forces had drawn up plans to kidnap or assassinate Lula, the newly elected president, along with the vice-president and a supreme court justice. Baptista Júnior was not summoned to those meetings. He learned of them through the press. The navy commander, Admiral Almir Garnier Santos, and Defence Minister Nogueira were both convicted and are serving sentences at military facilities. Bolsonaro is under house arrest.

Refusing to join the coup came at a cost. Baptista Júnior lost friendships. Military personnel called him a traitor, or used a slur—"watermelon"—for soldiers seen as green on the outside but communist red within. General Walter Souza Braga Netto, whom Baptista Júnior had considered a friend, ordered other officers to attack him on social media and "make his life and his family's hell." Braga Netto, Bolsonaro's running mate, was also convicted in connection with the attempted coup.

Yet experts warn that the threat has not passed. Juliano da Silva Cortinhas, a security researcher at the University of Brasília, notes that coup-supporting factions remain embedded within Brazil's armed forces. The risk of another attempt, he argues, may be even greater now. The new variable is Donald Trump, whose administration has actively sought to influence elections across Latin America in favor of far-right candidates, including Flávio Bolsonaro. In 2022, when Joe Biden occupied the White House, Bolsonaro's vice-president acknowledged that a coup would place Brazil in a "difficult position before the international community." That restraint may not hold if a future coup attempt occurs under different international circumstances. Baptista Júnior confirmed that active-duty military personnel still exist who believe a coup could be justified under certain conditions. "That's why eternal vigilance is the best path," he said.