On Thursday, a Brazilian Supreme Court panel found former President Jair Bolsonaro guilty of multiple charges, including leading a criminal group and attempting the violent overthrow of democratic rule. He was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison.

According to the prosecution, Bolsonaro and members of his cabinet and the military sought to orchestrate a coup after his electoral defeat in November 2022 and assassinate current president and political rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Brazil’s judiciary associated the former president’s actions with the events that led to the ransacking of the presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court in the capital Brasilia by his supporters in January 2023.

While the verdict was welcomed by other Latin American leaders like Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Chilean President Gabriel Boric, United States President Donald Trump’s administration, a staunch ally of Bolsonaro, swiftly condemned it. In the days leading up to the court panel’s verdict, Washington intensified pressure on Brazil’s government by imposing a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian goods and issuing personal sanctions against Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes under the Magnitsky Act, citing alleged human rights abuses.

But the Brazilian government and institutions were unshaken. Lula hailed the decision as “historic” and rejected US attempts of interference in Brazil’s internal affairs.

The verdict is indeed historic, not only because it marks the first time a Brazilian head of state was convicted on such charges but also because it demonstrates that despite Brazil’s tumultuous history, its democracy is a resilient, dynamic and adaptable system that works.

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This may come as a surprise to some. After all, the country’s recent past reflects struggles with authoritarianism and repression. From the seven decades of imperial monarchy in the 19th century after independence from Portugal through the republican period, the revolution of 1930, the unstable parliamentarian regime, the military dictatorship during the Cold War and the impeachment of two presidents in the democratic era, Brazil could easily be labelled as an unstable and unpredictable state.

What is more, the country is situated in a region that has long known coups, dictatorships and authoritarianism, often backed or orchestrated by the US.

Brazil’s own military dictatorship was firmly supported by the US government. Washington encouraged and backed the military coup of 1964, which ushered in an era of bloody repression that would only end two decades later. And yet, the democratic system that followed proved resilient even when confronted with wrongdoing by political leaders.

In 1979, President Joao Baptista Figueiredo signed a law giving amnesty to both military personnel and opponents of the dictatorship in an attempt to pave the way for democratisation. It also served to cover up the military regime’s crimes and protect those responsible.

In 2021, Bolsonaro decided to break with this policy of amnesty for crimes against the state by signing legislation that criminalised coup attempts and attacks on democracy. It is this very provision that was used by the Supreme Court in its ruling against him.

This is not the only time Brazilian courts have used presidents’ own legislative agendas against them. In 2005 during Lula’s first term, the country was shaken by a major scandal of vote-buying in Congress. As part of his efforts to appease the public, the president enacted the Clean Record Law (Lei da Ficha Limpa) in 2010, which rendered any candidate convicted by a collective judicial body (more than one judge) ineligible to hold public office for eight years. In 2018, Lula himself was barred from running for president again under his own law due to a conviction for corruption.

But these are not the only examples of Brazilian democracy weathering political storms linked to its leaders. The country has been through two presidential impeachments without major shocks to the system. Right-wing President Fernando Collor (1990-1992) was removed from office due to corruption involving his campaign treasurer while left-wing President Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) lost her position for manipulating the federal budget.

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The removal of both leaders did not lead to institutional instability but instead paved the way for significant reforms. Among them are the Plano Real (Real Plan) of 1994, which finally brought inflation under control, and the labour reform of 2017, which established the primacy of employer-employee agreements over existing labour legislation.

Taken together, these examples show that Brazil’s political system derives institutional strength from the application of the rule of law across the ideological spectrum.

The Brazilian case calls for a reconsideration of the longstanding but inaccurate view that Latin America is a breeding ground for unstable and unpredictable democracies. It shows that institutions are functioning and demonstrate both modernity and adaptability.

Brazil thus offers a reference point for other democracies in the region and beyond.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.