Datafolha: For 63%, the date of the coup should be ignored – 03/30/2024 – Power

The majority of Brazilians want the date that marked the beginning of 21 years of military dictatorship in the country, March 31, 1964, to be disregarded. According to Datafolha, 63% of those interviewed on March 19 and 20 think so. 28% see reason for celebration, and 9% do not know how to answer.

60 years after its implementation in a coup promoted by the Army with support from sectors of civil society, the dictatorship of 64 continues to generate controversy. The most recent due to the position of President Lula (PT), himself a prisoner of the dictatorship, seen on the left as being lenient about the period.

The government is delaying the re-creation of the Dead and Missing Commission, in a nod to the military. Lula recently said that the military regime “is part of history”, generating protests, and ordered that ministries not allude to the date of the coup.

Datafolha measured a change in the opinion of Brazilian voters in this survey. On the previous occasion when it proposed the issue, in April 2019, the institute recorded 36% of those interviewed stating that the date should be celebrated, compared to 57% who suggested contempt and 7% who did not know how to give an opinion.

At that time, retired Army captain Jair Bolsonaro (now in the PL) was at the beginning of his turbulent term. He had been elected without denying his sympathy for the dictatorship, which had made him a character between the folkloric and the sinister among the lower clergy of the Chamber of Deputies for almost 30 years, and calling the notorious torturer Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra (1932-2015) his idol.

During his government, the Ministry of Defense’s notes on the coup became famous, as in the 2020 text in which it was cited as a “milestone for democracy”. The texts sought to relativize it and place it in the context of the global Cold War dispute, in which those in uniform aligned themselves with the USA against the Soviet-inspired left.

From the point of view of political support, 58% of self-declared Bolsonarists say that the date should be ignored and 33% that it deserves celebration. The rates drop to 51% and 39%, respectively, when the interviewee says he is a PL voter, the former president’s party.

Among PT members, 68% want contempt for the date of the coup and 26%, praise for March 31st. For those who declare themselves neutral in the Brazilian polarization, 60% defend despising and 26%, celebrating.

There is great homogeneity in the other socioeconomic strata of the survey, with one notable exception: the richest 2% of the sample, who earn 10 minimum wages or more per month, are those who most advocate contempt (80%) for the celebration (20% ).

Datafolha interviewed, in 147 cities, 2,002 people aged 16 or over. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus two percentage points.