Brazil: A Brazilian senator has claimed that a close ally of former President Jair Bolsonaro persuaded him to join a conspiracy aimed at overturning the far-right leader’s electoral loss in 2022.

Senator Mr. Marcos do Val stated that he was invited to a meeting on December 9 with the then president by a fellow member of Congress, Mr. Daniel Silveira, to discuss a plan to “save Brazil.”

At the meeting, Mr. Silveira allegedly asked Mr. Do Val to try to persuade the country’s highest electoral authority, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, to make compromising comments in a taped telephone conversation.

“The recording would then be used to have Mr. De Moraes arrested and prevent Mr. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking over as president on January 1,” Mr. Do Val claimed.

The senator further noted that the former president “sat in silence” while Mr. Silveira planned the plot against Justice Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court judge running Brazil’s top electoral authority (TSE).

Earlier, Mr. Bolsonaro had questioned the integrity of the electronic voting system, which Mr. Moraes defended in decisions that the far-right leader blamed for his defeat.

Mr. Silveira was arrested by police on a warrant issued by Justice Moraes, who accused him of disobeying court rulings and “complete disrespect and mockery of the judiciary.”

Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the former president’s son, commented in a statement that “there was never any coup attempt” and that his father is a “defender of law and order and has always played within the four lines of the Constitution.”

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