RIO DE JANEIRO - For much of his presidency, Jair Bolsonaro worked to undermine confidence in the Brazil's democracy. Elections were rigged, he warned. Fraud was endemic. The electoral court was controlled by corrupt partisans.

The barrage of allegations is blamed for helping to drive thousands of Bolsonaristas in January to storm the capital, where they invaded the congress, presidential palace and supreme court in an effort to reverse his election loss.

Now comes Brazil's first attempt at holding Bolsonaro accountable.

Bolsonaro is scheduled to face trial before the country's electoral court Thursday on charges of abusing power. If convicted, the 68-year-old former leader could be barred from running for public office for eight years - a serious dent in the political future of Brazil's most polarizing figure.

The trial shows the different paths that Brazil and the United States are charting after suffering similar insurrections. In the United States, former president Donald Trump, battling criminal indictments on charges of mishandling classified materials and falsifying business records, is running to reclaim the White House.

But in Brazil, Bolsonaro allies consider it only a matter of time before Bolsonaro is barred from trying for his own second term. He's facing more than a dozen other investigations, some of them criminal, that could put him behind bars.

The difference between the countries is institutional. Brazil has a national electoral court, charged by the constitution with maintaining electoral integrity, staffed by a rotation of supreme court justices, federal judges and lawyers. The panel has the power to remove politicians from office and strip them of their political liberties. The United States has no equivalent authority.

In Bolsonaro's case, an opposition party has alleged that Bolsonaro abused his power when he summoned foreign diplomats to the presidential palace last July and claimed without proof that Brazil's electoral system was vulnerable to fraud and corruption. The 45-minute presentation was broadcast on public television.

The electoral court, in an investigation of its own, has questioned whether such statements led to the Jan. 8 uprising in Brasília.

Legal analysts and even top Bolsonaro aides expect the court to convict him.

"Bolsonaro's predicting a bad outcome," said Ciro Nogueira, his former chief of staff. "We are hoping [the court] will see the error before it happens."

But Bolsonaro nonetheless sounded defiant Wednesday afternoon. Speaking to reporters in Brasília, he challenged characterizations of Jan. 8 as an insurrection even as he tried to distance himself from the event.

"They're trying to create the air of a coup," he said. "There was an act of vandalism and destruction, which is abominable and which nobody agrees with. But a power grab? This didn't happen."

A federal prosecutor has described Bolsonaro's role in the day's events very differently. In a sealed court filing reviewed by The Washington Post, prosecutor Paulo Gustavo Gonet Branco said Bolsonaro used his position as president to try to convince not just Brazilians but the world that the country's elections couldn't be trusted. Gonet Branco recommended the court convict Bolsonaro.

"The protests were animated by people convinced the election had been rigged," Branco wrote. "The gravity of this speech against the integrity of the electoral system could not have been more obvious. His speech didn't win the most votes, but it was evidentially enough to shake the confidence that some had in the results."

The court could return a verdict as soon as this month.

Legal analysts say the court will want to make an example of Bolsonaro to deter future politicians from alleging electoral fraud without evidence.

Gustavo Guedes, an electoral attorney who in 2017 defended center-right former president Michel Temer before the court against allegations of abuse of power, said the evidence against Bolsonaro is damning. Bolsonaro didn't just sow doubts among Brazilians, he said; he attempted to undermine faith in Brazil's electoral results in the international community.

"He questioned the system itself," he said. "And it's even worse because he brought the contention outside of Brazil's borders. That's why there's a belief that the response must be severe."

The political impact of a ban on Bolsonaro running would be significant. He remains the most powerful figure on the Brazilian right. He won 58 million votes in October, just short of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's 60 million in the closest presidential vote of Brazil's 40-year-old democracy.

No politician has shown the same capacity to energize the country's conservatives, a base that had long been rudderless without a central leader.

Political aides have tried to spin his likely conviction as a positive. They said it would allow him to play the role of the victim, and mount a comeback based on grievance. He can travel the country and campaign for other conservatives.

"The death of Bolsonaro as a candidate does mean the death of the politics of Bolsonaro," said one senior adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer his candid assessment. "He'll come back 20 percent stronger as a political kingmaker."

There is precedent in Brazil for such a transformation. In 2018, the electoral court disqualified Lula, who had been convicted of money laundering and corruption. Later, the charges were thrown out, Lula's political rights were restored - and he went on to win the presidency once again.

Could Bolsonaro do it, too? Some think it highly unlikely.

"His support is fading," said Hélio Silveira, a former senior official with the Brazilian Bar Association. "The economy is getting better, and while life is hard, I don't know that he'll be able to lead a populational revolt."