Datafolha: 74% say they support democracy in Brazil – 12/21/2023 – Power

Support for democracy in Brazil remains at a high level, but has fallen from a record 79% to 74% since the most recent Datafolha survey, in October last year.

At that acute moment in the presidential campaign, perceived threats to democracy were on the rise, with the campaign carried out by Jair Bolsonaro (PL) against the Brazilian electoral system, which generated reactions in civil society.

On January 8 of this year, the coup acts of his supporters when they vandalized the headquarters of the three Powers marked the height of this crisis.

The then president ended up being punished this year by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), with the loss of political rights until 2030, for attacks on the electoral system in a meeting with ambassadors.

The perpetrators of the January attacks are being tried, and there has been a relative calming of the conflictive relationship between the Powers that marked the Bolsonaro years (2019-2022).

According to the institute, the number of people for whom it doesn’t matter whether the country is a democracy or a dictatorship rose from 11% to 15%, while the rate of those who consider a dictatorial regime acceptable under certain circumstances rose from 5% to 7%. circumstances.

Datafolha interviewed 2,004 people in 135 cities on the 5th of this month. The margin of error is plus or minus two points.

Bolsonaro also openly supported the military dictatorship that prevailed in Brazil from 1964 to 1985. With the intensification of institutional tensions promoted by the then president following the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020 the level of support for democracy grew in the country.

It has been measured since September 1989 by Datafolha, which has included the question in 29 surveys since then. As of June 2020, support has never been lower than 70%, reaching an all-time high of 79% in October last year.

One of the most serious moments in public life since the 1985 redemocratization occurred in 1992, when allegations of corruption emerged in the government of Fernando Collor de Mello (then PRN), the first president elected after the end of the dictatorship.

Without support in the National Congress and immersed in an economic crisis, Collor ended up resigning to avoid being overthrown by impeachment — losing, in any case, his political rights for eight years. At that moment, Brazilian democratic faith went through a shock, with the lowest support rate in the historical series (42%) recorded in February and the highest support for the dictatorship (23%) in September.

It should be noted that the system was relatively new in the country, which had only gone through the 1989 presidential election after years under the command of generals, and the institutional instability was much greater.

Today, as in recent surveys, adherence to the democratic regime is correlated with the income and education of those interviewed.

While 61% of those who studied up to elementary school support democracy, 89% of those who have a higher education degree say they support the regime. Likewise, support is 67% among those who earn up to 2 minimum wages and 88% among those who earn more than 5 monthly wages.

Men (78%) support democracy more than women (69%), and the least educated (23%) and the poorest (20%) are more indifferent to the government regime.