Brasília (AFP) - Brazil’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro to stand trial on charges of plotting a coup after losing elections in 2022.

The trial will be the first of an ex-leader accused of attempting to take power by force since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985 after two decades of military dictatorship.

A five-judge panel of the Supreme Court voted unanimously to put Bolsonaro on trial. He was not in court for the ruling, but in comments to reporters after the announcement slammed the allegations as “unfounded.”

If convicted, the 70-year-old former army captain, who had nurtured hopes of making a comeback in elections next year, risks a jail term of over 40 years.

Bolsonaro, who served a single term from 2019-2022, is accused of leading a “criminal organization” that conspired to keep him in power regardless of the outcome of the 2022 election.

He lost to leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by a razor-thin margin.

Investigators say that after his defeat, but while he was still in office, the coup plotters planned to install a state of emergency for the holding of new elections.

There was also an alleged plan to have Lula, his vice-president Geraldo Alckmin, and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes – a Bolsonaro foe and one of the judges in the current case – assassinated.

Moraes, who has called Bolsonaro a “dictator,” was the first judge to give his findings in the hearing, broadcast live on Brazilian TV.

“There are reasonable indications from the prosecution pointing to Bolsonaro as the leader of the criminal organization,” he said.

Analysts say it is unlikely Bolsonaro will be placed in preventive custody, and he will likely stand trial as a free man.

There is no timeframe, but “there is an expectation that the case will be judged this year” to avoid interference in next year’s elections, criminal lawyer Enzo Fachini told AFP.

- ‘Something personal’ -

Bolsonaro will be the second Brazilian ex-president in under a decade to face a criminal trial.

In July 2017, then ex-president Lula was found guilty of corruption.

Lula spent a year-and-a-half in prison but later had his conviction annulled by the Supreme Court and went on to win back the top office.

Bolsonaro is charged with attempting a “coup d’etat,” the “attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law” and “armed criminal organization.”

The prosecution says the alleged plot did not come to fruition due to a lack of support from the army high command.

Seven alleged conspirators will be tried alongside the ex-president, including former ministers and an ex-navy commander.

Bolsonaro insists he is the victim of a political plot to obstruct his return to power.

“It seems they have something personal against me. The accusations are very serious and unfounded,” he told reporters in Brasilia after Wednesday’s order.

Bolsonaro’s team had sought in vain to have three judges, including Moraes, removed from the case.

- ‘Trump of the Tropics’ -

Bolsonaro’s political future had already appeared in doubt before Wednesday’s ruling.

He has been disqualified from holding public office until 2030 for having sought to cast doubt on Brazil’s electronic voting system. He had been hoping to have the ban overturned in time to stand in next year’s election.

A conviction for plotting to subvert Brazil’s democracy would likely end those ambitions and force the political right wing to find a new candidate.

Dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics” after his political idol Donald Trump, Bolsonaro has been the target of multiple investigations since his turbulent years as leader of Latin America’s biggest economy.

The latest investigation yielded a dossier of nearly 900 pages.

Investigators say Brazil’s democracy hung by a thread on January 8, 2023, when thousands of Bolsonaro’s backers stormed the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court demanding the military oust Lula a week after his inauguration.

Bolsonaro was in the United States at the time and says he condemned the “violent acts” committed that day.

Throughout the investigation, he has compared his fate to that of his “friend” Trump, who returned to the White House this year despite his own legal troubles and after a similar storming of the US Capitol by his supporters in January 2021.

In an interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday, Bolsonaro claimed Brazil “needs support from abroad” as it had become “a real dictatorship.”