The anti-Bolsonaro military

Reserve Colonel Marcelo Pimentel Jorge de Souza graduated from the Agulhas Negras military academy in Rio de Janeiro in 1987, roughly a decade after three of the school’s more famous alumni, who led Brazil’s federal government for the last four years: former President Jair Bolsonaro, former Vice President Hamilton Mourão, and Mr. Bolsonaro’s 2022 running mate Walter Braga Netto.

Although the academic curriculum did not undergo major shifts at the Agulhas Negras academy, the two time periods were drastically different from a societal and political perspective. 

Mr. Bolsonaro and his peers majored during the 1970s, the toughest and most repressive era of Brazil’s military dictatorship. Col. Pimentel, on the other hand, graduated during the spring of the country’s return to democracy.

In 30 years of serving in the Army, Col. Pimentel acquired high-ranking positions and entered the reserve in 2018 as one of the force’s most qualified. Coincidentally, this coincided with Jair Bolsonaro’s election as president and the once-unlikely return of the Armed Forces to political protagonism.

During his campaign and time in office, Mr. Bolsonaro was backed up by a series of influential and mostly retired military officers, a group referred to in Brazil as “pajama generals.” And Mr. Bolsonaro filled his government with military personnel, having the highest number of Armed Forces members in the federal administration since the dictatorship itself.

In other words, around 30 years after retreating from politics with their tails between their legs, replaced by a civilian government, the military were given a taste of politics once more.

Col. Pimentel had seen the rise of this movement in his own home. His father is a reserve general who took part in the 1964 military coup. His brothers, son-in-law, and stepson are all in the Armed Forces, and they all support Jair Bolsonaro.

But he went in a different direction, becoming critical of the Armed Forces involvement in politics, led by what he calls the “military party.”

In Col. Pimentel’s view, the military party is an informal group that...