Brazil's former air force chief has written a first-hand account of how Jair Bolsonaro attempted to remain in power after losing the 2022 presidential election, describing in detail the moment a draft coup decree was presented to military commanders and his decision to walk out of the room.

Lt Brig Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior recounts the episode in a new book due to be published on 15 September. The book's Portuguese title translates as I Said No! -- An Anti-Coup Bulwark.

According to Baptista Júnior, the meeting took place six weeks after Bolsonaro lost the election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The defence minister, Gen Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira, produced a document from a plastic folder and distributed copies to the commanders of the navy, army and air force.

The document was a draft decree proposing to invalidate Lula's election victory and keep Bolsonaro in power.

"The draft coup decree -- which some people still insist to this day never existed -- was there, awaiting approval or rejection; consensus or a majority," Baptista Júnior writes in the book.

After learning that the document would prevent Lula from taking office, Baptista Júnior told the defence minister he refused even to receive it. "The air force will not take part in this," he said, before standing up and leaving the room.

Bolsonaro was subsequently investigated and convicted of attempting a coup. The investigation concluded that the plot failed to move forward mainly because two of the three armed forces commanders refused to participate -- Baptista Júnior and army commander Gen Marco Antônio Freire Gomes.

The navy commander, Adm Almir Garnier Santos, was convicted alongside Nogueira. Both are serving their sentences at military facilities. Bolsonaro is under house arrest. Freire Gomes has kept a low profile.

Baptista Júnior, 65, a former fighter pilot, said he decided to write the book to help prevent history from repeating itself. He said he was motivated in part by opinion polls showing that roughly a third of the Brazilian population still did not believe an attempted coup had taken place, despite the evidence presented at trial.

"Keeping in power someone who lost an election is a coup d'état," he said.

The book is set to appear approximately two weeks before the first round of Brazil's presidential election, in which Lula will face far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, one of the former president's sons. Some Bolsonaro supporters have accused Baptista Júnior of attempting to influence the vote. He has stated he will vote for neither Lula nor Flávio, and is critical of both in the book. He said the timing was simply the result of the writing and editing process.

Despite having voted for Bolsonaro in both the 2018 and 2022 elections, Baptista Júnior is sharply critical of his former commander-in-chief in the book. He describes Bolsonaro, a former army captain who spent 30 years as a city councillor and then congressman before reaching the presidency, as someone with "significant limitations in political, institutional and administrative experience" and an "almost total imperviousness to outside opinions or information that did not conform to the 'truths' he had already established as his own."

He cites Bolsonaro's refusal to accept scientific evidence supporting Covid-19 vaccination as one example of that mindset.

During the election period, Baptista Júnior writes, Bolsonaro became "entirely consumed by his own efforts to remain in office." The president ordered the armed forces to investigate the electronic voting system but refused to accept their findings when they reported no irregularities.

"He may still not believe the election result even today. Whether that is a matter of character, personality or something pathological, I don't know," Baptista Júnior said.