The majority of Brazilians believe that Jair Bolsonaro was trying to escape by damaging the electronic ankle bracelet he was wearing under court order, according to a Datafolha survey carried out between December 2 and 4, and released on Sunday night (7). According to the survey, 54% of those interviewed see an intention to escape, while 33% accept the former president’s version that he acted during a paranoid outbreak. Another 13% were unable to answer.
The survey interviewed 2,002 voters in 113 municipalities. The margin of error is two percentage points. The results appear relatively homogeneous among the segments researched, with variations within statistical limits. Young people aged 16 to 24 are more likely to escape, at 60%. Among the richest, support for the outbreak hypothesis is growing, with 40%.
The differences increase when the focus is political. The outbreak version finds greater acceptance among groups aligned with the former president: in the South and North/Central-West regions, 40% agree with this explanation. Among evangelicals, the rate is 46%. Among Bolsonaro voters in the 2022 second round, it reaches 66%. The escape thesis gains strength among northeasterners, with 61%, and among those who voted for Lula, with 66%.
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The episode occurred in the early hours of November 22nd. Bolsonaro had been under house arrest in Brasília since August and wore an ankle bracelet as ordered by Minister Alexandre de Moraes. At 0:07 am, the central office of the Penitentiary Administration Secretariat of the Federal District registered a violation alert. The responsible team contacted the residence and heard that the equipment had been knocked into a staircase. When he arrived at the scene, he found the anklet damaged using a soldering iron.
For Moraes, the damage reinforced the risk of escape, a hypothesis that had been monitored. The minister considered that the confusion could serve to remove the former president from his residence and take him to an embassy of an allied country, an environment protected by diplomatic inviolability.
Since then, Bolsonaro has been imprisoned in the Federal Police superintendence in Brasília. The request for house arrest was denied by Moraes after the end of the process that convicted him of participating in a coup plot.
