SAO PAULO (AP) — Police have formally accused Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 others of attempting a coup to keep the right-wing leader in office after his electoral defeat in 2022. Their allegations threaten to torpedo Bolsonaro's hopes of returning to politics.

Police indicted Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro and 36 other people on Thursday for allegedly attempting a coup to keep the right-wing leader in office after his defeat in the 2022 elections.

Bolsonaro and 36 other people are charged with attempting a coup to keep him in office after his defeat in the 2022 election.

That is because General Prosecutor Paulo Gonet is planning to merge three Federal Police investigations into Bolsonaro's actions against Brazil's democratic system and produce one single global indictment against him,

In recommending charges against the former president, police say Latin America’s largest country came very close to suffering a coup following the 2022 election.

Brazilian police have accused some his backers of involvement not just in a coup, but in an assassination plot

Already barred from running again in 2026 over a different case, the former President could now land in jail and see his influence further diminished.

Brazilian authorities have indicted the country’s former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro alongside 36 other individuals as part of the investigation into a coup plot to keep him in power following the election of his successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.