The Difference Between the Coup Plotters Who Are Held to Account and Those Who Aren’t

This article is part of TPM Cafe, the House of TPM for the opinion and the analysis of the news. It was initially published during the conversation.

The conviction of Jair Bolsonaro, on September 11, 2025, put the former Brazilian president in a gallery of failing coupters to take into account their attempted power.

The Supreme Court of Brazil recognized Bolsonaro guilty of a criminal army organization and other charges relating to a coup to cancel the electoral defeat of the former president in 2022 against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The prosecutors had previously argued that Bolsonaro and others had discussed a plan to assassinate Lula and encouraged a riot on January 8, 2023, in the hope that the Brazilian army intervene and would return Bolsonaro in power.

Four of the five panel judges voted to condemn. Judge Cármen Lúcia, who was part of the majority, said that the right on the right had acted “with the aim of eroding democracy and institutions”. Sentenced to 27 years and three months behind bars, Bolsonaro should call on the verdict.

As a political scientist who documented the fate of hundreds of couple leaders in the book “Historical Dictionary of Modern Coup d’état”, we have collected a set of data from each attempted coup since the end of the Second World War. Bolsonaro is now one of the thousands of coupters of coup d’etat which have been brought to justice.

Not all conspirators of the coup are held responsible for their actions. And even for those, like Bolsonaro, who are, that does not necessarily mark the end of their political ambitions.

Coup and punishment

Tying a coup is a risky business. Some of those who try to grasp or usurp the unconstitutional power are killed during their buyout offer, especially when the security forces faithful to the chief in office thwart the attack. Christian Malanga, a former exile army captain who led a violent attempt to seize power in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is an example. He was killed during the shooting that followed in May 2024.

But most leaders of the failed coups survive.

And although they are generally faced with punishment, the severity of the consequences varies considerably; It often depends on the question of whether the attempt is a self-group, which is a takeover by an outgoing leader or an attempt to avoid an in office.

The most common fate of auto leaders stranded in democracies is the dismissal and the move of his duties, as he came from Indonesia Abdurrahman Wahid in July 2001, from Lucio Gutiz of the Ecuador in April 2005, of the little ‘Pedro Castillo in December 2022 and the Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea in April 2025.

Certain coup d’etat conspirators and their co-conspirators are charged to a court and, if they are found guilty, sent to prison. The American co-conspirators of Malanga were finally sentenced to life prison in April 2025.

A similar spell has now struck Bolsonaro. His conviction means that less appeal, Bolsonaro could end his days in detention.

However, this could have been worse – failed couples are often punished outside the independent courts, where the penalty is often more serious. The coupters of the coup have been briefly executed or sentenced to death by a military court or a “popular court”. The longtime zaire dictator Mobutu Sese Seko has executed more than a dozen junior officers and civilians after his government discovered an alleged coup in 1978.

A recent estimate suggests that 40% of conspirators of the coup are a relatively light punishment. Many donors are simply demoted or purged from the government without dealing with a trial or an execution. A particularly popular decision is to send coup d’etat in exile to discourage their supporters from mobilizing against the regime. The former Haitian president Dumarsais estimated was forced to exile after his attempt as an auto group failed in May 1950; He died in the United States a few years later.

Punishment does not always end the threat

The problem facing governments is that failing poses represent a persistent political threat. Ousted leaders often conspire “couples” to return to power. For example, the former president of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos, after being ousted in the movement of the 1986 Power People, organized complies of exile state, although he never came to power.

Some succeed, like David Dacko, who returned from exile to grasp power in the Central African Republic in 1979, but only with the help of the French forces.

Even when condemned or exiled, conspirators of the coup can be released later. Some members of the Brazil Congress had already, before the Verdict, presented a bill which could grant Bolsonaro Amnesty.

Some former failed couples leaders manage to come to power later. Jerry Rawlings of Ghana led a failed coup in May 1979, but continued to grasp power during subsequent coups in June 1979 and 1981; Hugo Chavez was condemned and imprisoned for leaving a failed coup in 1992, but ended up being elected president in Venezuela in 1998.

The risk that the cuts of cuts remain unpunished

A single failed self -managed leader, appointed in our data set, has managed to retain his functions – from where he worked, according to criticism, to successfully dismantle democracy: the strong man of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele. In February 2020, in the midst of an impasse from the political opposition, Bukele threatened to dissolve the legislator, bringing with him armed soldiers to occupy the legislative assembly.

Although Bukele temporarily fell, he has made no legal or political link. His party won a legislative supermajture in 2021, and he won the re -election in 2024. The Bukele power party recently raised the limits of the presidential mandate, potentially allowing him to govern for life.

The good news to punish unsuccessful coupters is only because they failed, they don’t have to be cajolés out of power. Thus, holding them responsible for their actions should dissuade future plotters from trying the same thing. On the other hand, for a chief who has done little recommendable things while being in power – like killing domestic dissidents or committing war crimes – the threat of punishment once they leave power can turn against him by giving them a reason to fight to stay in power.

In the long term, the couples of coup d’etat who failed who escape punishment are more likely to make a political return.

When they were defeated in the polls, Donald Trump and Bolsonaro tried to reverse official results. The two tried to modify the voting totals after losing and preventing an elections winner from not being inaugurated.

But for Trump, there was no censorship or punishment, and he is now back to power, where he has weakened the controls and counterweights that we and other political scientists consider as crucial for the preservation of growing economic and economic prosperity.

On the other hand, a conviction for Bolsonaro means that it is now unlikely that it will follow the same path to the political resurrection. Even if he is finally forgiven, a guilt verdict makes him ineligible to compete again for the presidency of Brazil.

This is an update version of an article that was published for the first time in the conversation on September 8, 2025. This article was republished from the conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.