Editorial

Stagnant Waters and Lula's Battle to Gain Momentum

Last Sunday, October 16, the candidates met for the first debate of the second round. The highly-anticipated confrontation, however, did little to change the contours of the race. There were no dramatic moments that might indicate a shift in the momentum of the race, an outcome that would seem to benefit former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who continues to lead in the polls. Nevertheless, there is a widespread sense that the presidential dispute has tightened with less than ten days until the run-off vote to determine Brazil’s next president. Despite the active support from Senator Simone Tebet (Brazilian Democratic Movement, MDB), who finished in third in the first round of voting, and the tacit but thoroughly unengaged backing of fourth-place finisher Ciro Gomes, Lula has not managed to build on his lead against Bolsonaro. This is in part because Tebet and Ciro received relatively few votes to begin with. They simply did not, in other words, have too many voters they could easily deliver to Lula. That said, Lula remains numerically ahead of Bolsonaro in every poll, as he has throughout the campaign. What he has clearly sought to do is prevent Bolsonaro’s growth. 

One way of doing this has been to reach out explicitly to evangelical voters to counter the onslaught of bolsonarista politicking among this large and growing segment of the population. Lula has had to forcibly refute absurd insinuations that he would shut down houses of worship, for example, among other even more outlandish accusations. Lula won’t beat Bolsonaro among these voters, but he might reduce the difference. On Wednesday, October 19, Lula’s campaign released a statement that specifically sought to reassure evangelical voters that his administration would respect all religious faiths. Recalling the famous “carta ao povo brasileiro”  (letter to the Brazilian voter) Lula issued in 2002 to reassure banks and foreign investors ahead of his first election to the presidency, this new document makes clear that the Workers’ Party (PT) sees Christian fundamentalists in particular as a dogged opposition that must be addressed directly. Lula in the past has resisted this move, seemingly taking offense at the notion that, as a Catholic who was married in the church and always respected religious pluralism in office, he needed to defend himself from religious attacks. The former president leads among Catholics, who remain the largest religious bloc in the country, but his campaign deemed Bolsonaro’s overwhelming advantage among Protestant evangelicals as a significant enough threat to merit a direct response.

Lula also appeared on the Flow podcast, one of the country’s most popular. The audience of the show skews young and male, a demographic also more likely to support Bolsonaro than the PT. Lula’s appearance on the show broke viewership records, indicating that there is a large audience for the former president in non-traditional media settings. Indeed, in a political campaign in which both candidates are looking to squeeze out every possible vote in every region of the country, margins matter. There are segments of the population that Lula will not win over, but simply reducing Bolsonaro’s advantage will make victory that much more attainable. Bolsonaro has embraced a similar logic, looking to mitigate Lula’s lead in the populous Northeast region.

This week was also dominated by accusations that the courts overseeing the election were engaging in censorship to favor one side in particular. Pro-Bolsonaro activists and supporters on social media argued, as they have before, that the judiciary is biased against the president because so many were appointed by Lula. Now, they say, the courts are going all out to help secure Lula’s election. This charge is difficult to sustain, however, in the face of similar rulings preventing the PT from using footage of Bolsonaro openly discussing his willingness to eat indigenous people or insinuating sexual attraction to teenage girls in their ad campaign. When it comes to limiting what the campaigns can say on the airwaves, in other words, both campaigns have reason to be upset. The idea that any single political attack ad can deliver a knockout blow, however, should have gone out the window weeks ago.

Highlights

• THE ELECTORAL COURT AGAINST THE FAKE NEWS. Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the country's national electoral authority, announced moves to crack down harder on online disinformation in a fierce presidential campaign between far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party) and leftist challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party). The TSE said the measures are intended to curb the "distribution and sharing of knowingly untrue or gravely decontextualized information affecting the electoral process," according to the resolution.

• PLATFORMS SPREAD FAKE NEWS IN BRAZILIAN ELECTIONS. YouTube and Facebook are allowing disinformation to be spread about Brazil’s election campaign, adding to the bitterness in an already polarized and violent election, according to a new report by the human rights organization Global Witness. The NGO produced a series of purposely misleading ads during an election season that has been dominated by the bitter race between far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and his leftist challenger, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

• ANTI-CORRUPTION EXPERTS SIGN LETTER IN SUPPORT OF LULA. A group of 59 professors, researchers and specialists from different areas, with expertise in fighting corruption, released a letter on Friday, October 21, supporting former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the second round of the elections.

• DATAFOLHA POLL. According to the last Datafolha poll, released on Wednesday, October 19, Lula (Worker's Party), has 49 percent, and Bolsonaro (Liberal Party) 45 percent of voting intentions. The incumbent increases his advantage in the Southeast, the most populous region, where he now leads by 50 percent against 43 percent for Lula. Oscillation over last week favors the president, and there are 4 percent blank or spoiled ballots, and 1 percent undecided. Still, Lula would receive 52 percent against 48 percent for Bolsonaro of valid votes. Half of polled voters report that they will not vote for Bolsonaro, and 46 percent say they would not vote for Lula, while 6 percent say they can still change their vote. Among evangelicals, Bolsonaro has 66 percent support, and Lula has 28 percent. Among voters who earn up to two minimum wages, Lula has 57 percent of the voting intentions, and Bolsonaro has 37 percent. Among women, Lula has 51 percent support, and Bolsonaro has 42 percent

Feature Article

OECD Convention: Brazil Decreases Efforts in Fighting Corruption Abroad

São Paulo, October 11, 2022 — Brazil was downgraded in the independent assessment by Transparency International, which monitors the implementation of Anti Bribery Convention of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The Convention against Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions of the OECD is one of the most important instruments of international anti-corruption legislation, as it focuses on preventing and fighting a specific type of corruption, which is highly harmful to international trade and economic development: the payment of bribes by companies, multinationals, or exporters to foreign public officials to favor their business in the global market. This is a type of corruption that is still widely practiced even by rich countries, which have managed to control corruption in their national territories, but whose companies still use dishonest practices to win contracts or other favorable conditions for their business abroad – most of the time paying bribes in developing countries. Brazil has been a signatory to the Convention since 2002, but has not yet joined the OECD. The full entry is an aspiration of President Jair Bolsonaro, but it depends on the fulfillment of certain requirements by the country, with the effectiveness in the application of the Anti-Bribery Convention as a main one. According to the global report Exporting Corruption 2022, released by the Transparency International Secretariat in Berlin on October 11, 2022, Brazil went from a "moderate" implementation in an assessment released in 2020 to a “limited” implementation of transnational anti-bribery mechanisms. The report covers the period from 2018 to 2021 and evaluated the 43 signatory countries of the Convention, in addition to China, India, Hong Kong, and Singapore, which are not part of the treaty but are responsible for a significant portion of international trade.

Brazil was on a trajectory of significant improvement in the ranking of the 2018 report (improving in two categories, from "no application" to "moderate application"), stabilizing in 2020 (remaining as "moderate"), and now a rollback to the 2022 report (“limited application”). The drop in ranking in the current report is due to the reduction in the number of investigations opened, cases initiated, and convictions in transnational bribery cases. In the analyzed period, Brazil only initiated five investigations, started one trial, and only concluded two cases with the application of sanctions related to transnational bribery.

Among the main factors that led to this situation are: (1) loss of independence of institutions that act to control international corruption, in particular the Attorney General's Office, the Police, and the Department of Asset Recovery and International Legal Cooperation (DRCI, linked to the Ministry of Justice); (2) discontinuation of the Task Forces model (essential for investigations of complex cases of international corruption), without their replacement by adequate working teams and inter-institutional cooperation; (3) transfer of competence to investigate cases of corruption and money laundering when associated with electoral crimes (such as slush funds) for the Electoral Justice Court (TSE), with less structure and specialization to deal with complex crimes; (4) legal uncertainty and legal deficiencies of vital instruments for fighting transnational corruption, such as the leniency agreements, asset recovery and victim compensation, and protection for good faith whistleblowers); (5) poor data transparency about investigations against transnational bribery and the sanctions applied by the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU), especially in the case of leniency agreements.

The Exporting Corruption report is released as the Anti-Bribery Working Group (WGB) of the OECD meets in Paris. It will be up to this committee, among other thematic groups of the organization, to issue opinions to approve or place reservations on Brazil's entry into the OECD. In 2019, worried about the setbacks by Brazil in complying with the Convention, the WGB sent a high-level special mission to the country to check the situation on the spot. The scenario continued to deteriorate and, at the end of 2020, the OECD created, for the first time in its history, a subgroup to specifically monitor the situation in Brazil, which continues to be followed as a critical case.

On October 6, 2022, the government of President Jair Bolsonaro announced the sending to the OECD of the initial memorandum for joining the OECD, a self-assessment about which of the requirements established by the entity Brazil already complies with and which it still does not. According to the government, Brazil adhered to 108 and of the 230 main normative instruments of the institution and has already requested adhesion to another 45 instruments. The self-assessment document, however, is being kept confidential, which means that Brazilian society cannot check which country portrait its government is presenting to the OECD.

It is important to emphasize, however, that the OECD assessment will take into account not only the existence of norms aligned with the organization, but also its effectiveness. The Exporting Corruption report indicates that in relation to transnational bribery Brazil has precisely failed to guarantee the correct implementation of these measures.

"The numerous setbacks to the fight against corruption in the last five years have resulted in a worsening in the capacity of Brazilian institutions to punish cases of transnational bribery, which undoubtedly negatively impact the country's admission process to the OECD. We hope that the OECD Anti-Bribery Working Group establishes, among the indispensable conditions for this admission, the recovery of autonomy of Brazilian control of institutions, including the Federal Police and the Federal Public Ministry, and the strengthening of investigation and criminal prosecution mechanisms for complex corruption cases that go beyond borders”, says Guilherme France, consultant for Transparency International - Brazil.

International Results

The 2022 edition of the Exporting Corruption report warns of a global historic low in the fight against corruption and transnational bribery, with only two countries now being classified as “active” in combating it (United States and Switzerland, which together represent 11.8% of global exports). Brazil was one of nine countries to rank worse in this edition of the report, along with the United Kingdom, Israel (both from category “active” to “moderate”), Italy, Spain, Sweden, Portugal (from “moderate” to “limited”), and Denmark and Lithuania (from “limited” to “little or no compliance”). Only two countries have improved their position: Latvia (from “moderate” to “limited” compliance) and Peru (from “little or non-compliance” to “limited”).

The report analyzed 47 countries, which account for 84% of global exports.

About Transparency International - Brazil

Transparency International is a global movement with a common purpose: to build a world in

which governments, companies, and people's daily lives are free from corruption. We operate in Brazil in support and mobilization of local groups fighting corruption and producing knowledge, awareness, and commitment of companies and governments to the best global practices of transparency and integrity, among other activities. Transparency InternationaI's global presence allows us to defend initiatives and legislation against corruption and ensure that governments and companies effectively submit to them. Our network also means collaboration and innovation, which gives us privileged conditions to develop and test new anti-corruption solutions.

Transparency International's independent global assessment shows that Brazil went from a “moderate” to a “limited” implementation of the established mechanisms by the OECD against the payment of a bribe in foreign business transactions.

Feature articles express the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or WBO.