Lula adopts cautious Brazil election campaign
Weeks before Brazil’s October election, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is running one of the country’s most cautious presidential campaigns in years as he tries to protect a razor-thin lead in the polls against right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, advisers close to his campaign told Reuters.
The result has been an unusually subdued campaign, the sources said, amid concerns about misinformation, foreign interference, and accidentally unleashing damaging political narratives.
“The ability to mislead voters today is even greater than it was in 2022, so it’s a real concern. We have to be much more careful about what we do and say,” one adviser said, asking not to be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly on the matter.
Polls show Lula holding a narrowing lead over Senator Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, with the latest polls showing a 1- to 3- percentage-point difference in the second round.
Inside the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, officials have been told to closely vet government actions to avoid accusations that state resources are being used for political purposes and to minimise missteps that opponents could exploit.
Ministers have been asked to delete social media posts, and state television has stopped broadcasting presidential events to avoid the risk of violating the Brazilian electoral law, the sources told Reuters. At the same time, official announcements and presidential events are being carefully reviewed to avoid misinterpretation, even if some officials see it as an overly cautious approach, they added.
“I think there’s a certain amount of exaggeration in this concern with violating the law. Previous administrations had absolutely no concern about this,” one source said.
“The Brazilian legislation is clear that at some point the incumbent will be president and candidate at the same time.”
Yet all that caution was not enough to spare Lula from a social media storm last week. During an interview, he said he had never met a lobbyist who is currently under investigation in a corruption probe, only for Instagram photos showing the two together to quickly resurface and circulate online.
His campaign claimed he is often approached by people asking for photos, but he maintains he has no relation whatsoever with the lobbyist.
His rival, Bolsonaro, has dealt with his own social media controversy as well. This week, a Brazilian magazine revealed that he had received a payment of $1.6 million from Daniel Vorcaro, a disgraced former banker investigated for corruption in one of the largest fraud schemes uncovered in the Brazilian financial system. A previous payment of $24 million was revealed in May.
Lula’s campaign, however, sees a much more challenging environment with the rise of artificial intelligence, which makes the distortion of information harder to detect, and an administration in Washington that seems to be encouraging a shift to the right in Latin America.-Reuters
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