Former Brazil air force chief says he refused draft decree to annul 2022 election — recounts October meeting in new book

Former air force chief Lt Brig Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior provides a first‑hand account in a book due 15 September of an October 2022 meeting where a draft decree to annul Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s election was presented to the service commanders.

Baptista Júnior says defence minister Gen Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira removed a draft decree from a plastic folder and handed copies to the navy, army and air force commanders. He writes that he refused even to receive the document, telling the defence minister: “The air force will not take part in this,” and then left the room.

Prosecutions and a trial that convicted those involved in the attempted coup concluded the plot stalled largely because two of the three service chiefs — Baptista Júnior and army commander Gen Marco Antônio Freire Gomes — declined to participate.

The navy commander, Adm Almir Garnier Santos, and Nogueira were convicted and are serving sentences in military facilities; Bolsonaro is under house arrest. Freire Gomes has kept a low profile. Baptista Júnior says he wrote the book to help prevent a repeat of events and because many Brazilians still doubt that an attempted coup occurred despite the trial evidence.

In the book he recounts more than a dozen meetings in which Bolsonaro sought ways to remain in office, including ordering an investigation of the electronic voting system that the armed forces found showed no irregularities, which Bolsonaro refused to accept. Baptista Júnior also notes he learned from the press about a plan by army special forces to kidnap or assassinate Lula and others and says he was not summoned to those meetings.

He describes personal costs for saying no: lost friendships, social‑media attacks ordered by some senior officers and insults from colleagues. The book is scheduled to appear roughly two weeks before the first round of the presidential election in which Lula will face Flávio Bolsonaro. Baptista Júnior says he will vote for neither candidate and criticises both in the book.

Some observers have said officials should have reported the attempted coup to police immediately after it occurred.