On paper, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to prison until the age of 97.

However, legal experts say the ex-president is unlikely to spend more than a fraction of his 27-year sentence behind bars after the Brazilian Supreme Court found him guilty of plotting a coup to overturn the 2022 election he lost.

First, Brazilian convicts often serve just a sixth of their sentence under full custody before entering a day-release program. More importantly, the far-right firebrand's allies have laid out plans to spring him in short order, working the levers of power in all three branches of government.