Jul 19 2024 | Nº. 126

Editorial

The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania dominated international headlines this week. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva condemned the attack unequivocally: “No one has the right to shoot a person because they don't agree with them politically. This impoverishes democracy. And as I am a defender of democracy, I think we all have to condemn actions of this type.” Several international observers drew comparisons between the shooting and the stabbing of former president Jair Bolsonaro during the 2018 presidential campaign. Bolsonaro was quick to express his solidarity with Trump after the shooting, calling him “the greatest world leader right now” and adding that he hopes to see him in Washington for his inauguration next January. Lula noted on Tuesday that the Trump campaign was likely to use the shooting in its campaign, a fact borne out by the various speeches at the Republican National Convention. The Brazilian president has not shied away from endorsing the Democrat in the race, although it was reported this week that the Lula government is already preparing for the prospect of a new Trump administration. 

In the meantime, Lula is still contending with Argentina’s right-wing libertarian chief executive Javier Milei, who has not tried to hide his affection for both Trump and Bolsonaro nor his deep antipathy for Lula. This week, Lula recalled Brazil’s ambassador to Argentina, Julio Bitelli, for consultations in Brasília. “The relationship between countries is what matters,” Bitelli stated after meeting with Lula on Monday, adding that “the relationship between people can have more affinity, less affinity, ideological proximity, ideological distance. The work of the embassy in Buenos Aires, since December last year, is to preserve the relationship.” The challenges of dealing with Milei are but a taste of what Lula would face if Trump wins this fall. 

Closer to home, Lula’s finance minister Fernando Haddad has been the subject recently of a wave of internet memes humorously critiquing the administration’s purported obsession with raising taxes. The focus of the Lula government has been on making Brazil’s tax code fairer, charging more from those at the top of the social pyramid with millions stashed away abroad. Nevertheless, the notion that the administration cares only about raising revenues rather than cutting spending is a potentially potent line of attack. It is likely to solidify Haddad’s argument that the government must hold the line on spending — and even find substantial cuts in the budget — to signal its commitment to fiscal stewardship. Every week, despite a sterling record so far, it seems the government has to find new ways to assuage investors and other market analysts that it takes economic matters seriously.

Highlights

• Violence in numbers. The Brazilian Public Security Yearbook, published on Thursday, July 18 by the Brazilian Public Security Forum, shows that Brazil recorded 46,328 intentional violent deaths in 2023. This number represents a drop of 3.4 percent compared to 2022 , and confirms the downward movement in this regard registered since 2017. Deaths resulting from police interventions have tripled in the last ten years. Last year alone, 6,393 people were killed by police in the country, which represents a 189 percent jump compared to 2013, even with a small decline of 0.9 percent between 2023 and 2022. The Yearbook also shows that there was record number of rape crimes, with a total of 83,988 cases last year, which is equivalent to one incident every six minutes. Murders of LGBTQIA+ people increased by 42 percent last year.

   

• Lula monitored. The U.S. government produced 819,000 documents and 3,300 pages of documents about President Lula da Silva between 1966, when he was still a metallurgical union leader during the dictatorship, and 2019, after he ran twice for President of the Republic, without success, and after being arrested in Operation Lava Jato. The US intelligence agency (CIA) has 613 documents about him, spanning 2,000 pages. The information was given to writer Fernando Morais, who is writing the second volume of a biography of the current president. He did not have access, however, to the content of these documents.

• Social investments. Even under pressure to cut public spending, this week President Lula reiterated his concern about maintaining social investments. In an interview with TV Record, he said that he needs to be convinced by his team about the real need for each expense in the social sector. If necessary, said the president, he would be willing to change the surplus target in the government's accounts so as not to harm social programs. The message displeases the market, which has put pressure on Lula and Economy Minister Fernando Haddad to prioritize budget targets, imposing cuts that could reach R$20 billion (US$3.6 billion) in the current fiscal year.

   

• Visit to Brazil. U.S. Assistant Secretary for Energy Resources Geoffrey R. Pyatt was in Brazil in July to discuss “energy security, energy transition and cooperation in critical minerals” in meetings with “representatives of the public and private sectors,” according to a statement from the U.S. State Department. In Brasília, the meetings were with members of the Ministries of Mines and Energy, Foreign Affairs and Trade. In addition, Pyatt also met with the Secretariats of Transition and National Energy Planning; Geology, Mining and Mineral Transformation; and Oil, National Gas and Biofuels. There was also a meeting with members of the National Electric Energy Agency and the Brazilian Geological Research Agency.

• Case against Bolsonaro. On Monday, July 15, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes removed judicial secrecy on the recording of a meeting that took place in August 2020 between then President Jair Bolsonaro, ministers from his cabinet and agents from the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN). Alexandre Ramagem, who at the time was the general director of ABIN, recording the meeting. He recently announced his intentions to run for mayor of Rio de Janeiro and has the support of the Bolsonaro family. In the conversation, the then president talks about contacting tax inspection bodies to help one of his sons, Congressman Flávio Bolsonaro, who was accused of diverting part of the salaries paid to his advisors to himself. The recording is part of a more comprehensive investigation into what is being dubbed the “parallel ABIN” – a spying machine run by Bolsonaro against his enemies and in favor of him and his family members.

News from the WBO, Organizations and Social Movements

Political Spying. This week, the WBO joined the group of Brazilian civil society organizations that denounced in a public statement the illegal spying carried out by Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN) agents during the term of former President Jair Bolsonaro. According to information from the ongoing investigation, among the victims of illegal surveillance are Sleeping Giants Brasil, Advocacy Hub, Aos Fatos, Instituto Sou da Paz, NOSSAS and Agência Lupa. Read the full note.

Public security. The Sou da Paz Institute released its 2023 annual report this week, entitled “The Resumption of Democratic Dialogue for the Construction of Public Security,” in which it reviews its projects, partnerships, research, and actions linked to the prevention of armed violence and the promotion of public security monitoring, in addition to debates on police professionalization and the need to protect the lives of agents and the population. The organization also launched a minimum agenda of commitments to public security and human rights for candidates for mayor in São Paulo, in the elections scheduled for October 6.

Attacks on indigenous people. This week the Indigenist Missionary Council (CMI) denounced attacks against the Kaingang, Avá-Guarani and Kaiowá communities in the states of Paraná, Mato Grosso do Sul and Rio Grande do Sul. Cimi insisted that “large landowners in the region do not accept the fact that Indigenous peoples have the right to live on their original lands.” The organization also says that these economic groups act in conjunction with “partisan members of Congress.” In the attacks, armed men shot at communities and set fire to vehicles and food warehouses. CMI “calls for the adoption of political, legal, and administrative measures to ensure protection for Indigenous people, the guarantee that aggressors are held criminally responsible, and that indigenous lands are demarcated.”

Public transparency. On Tuesday, July 16, Transparency International – Brazil issued its most recent assessment of the Transparency and Public Governance Index (ITGP). The survey revealed that the transparency of three out of four Brazilian capitals is “so-so” or “poor.” The states with the best ratings (“excellent”) were Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Rondônia, and Goiás. The worst rated were Sergipe, Pará and Acre (“bad”). Access the search.

Communities online. The civil society organization, “We in Movement,” which works to develop public policies and actions to reduce racial, gender, and social inequalities in Baixada Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, launched its website this week. The organization works collectively in communities and networks to solve the objective needs of the population, “dialoguing with an accessible language, aiming to create utopias and life perspectives.”

Feature Article

Evangelicals and Elections in a Less Catholic Country

By Ana Carolina Evangelista*

Religious diversification in Brazil has been occurring accompanied by continued evangelical growth. In the last forty years the percentage of evangelicals has increased fivefold and currently reaches 31 percent of the population over 16 years of age. At the same time, the number of Catholics has dropped significantly, and the number of "no religion" and other religions has also been growing. Adherence to the evangelical universe has grown in all social strata but is predominant at the base of the social pyramid in urban and peripheral areas. We are talking about a population that is mostly low-income, Black and female. An evangelical belt has been forming in the outskirts of Brazilian cities over the last forty years. And in this growing religious transition in Brazil, evangelicals not only stand out because of their numerical presence, but also for their religious activism. Surveys from Pew Research indicate that 60 percent of evangelicals attend church and pray daily, compared to just 23 percent of Catholics. Evangelicals also share their faith more outside of their church.

We are talking, therefore, about an evangelical population that is growing and is more active and proactive in its religious habits in a country that previously had a non-practicing Catholic majority.

In this scenario, the growth of the influence of religion in the Brazilian State is not a new debate, but it once again has gained greater visibility following the 2018 election, of President Jair Bolsonaro. This is the case not only because he had historical support from a single religious segment, namely evangelicals, or because he explicitly mobilized a broader Christian identity in the political campaign and in office, but also because we have witnessed a conjunction of political forces and ultraconservative agendas closely linked to religious morals.

But what are the new elements that we observe in the relationship between religious groups and politics?

To answer this question, it is important on the one hand to look at the articulation of both religious and conservative political leaders who are present in the Brazilian State in a way that grows, gains greater operability, and is not restricted to the influence of evangelical forces. On the other hand, this phenomenon is based on the religious transition in Brazil in recent decades and the nuances of the evangelical presence in society and politics.

From the point of view of the institutional organization of religious groups in this less Catholic and more diverse country, this evangelical universe also has some nuances. The so-called “Brazilian evangelical church,” normally presented in the singular, is not a homogeneous and uniform group. It is a mosaic of churches and groups with different theologies, governance models, and practices. It has a diversity that is not as present in politics if we analyze the profile of representatives elected to national and subnational legislatures, for example.

This "more evangelical" Brazil is also a nation with the highest homicide rates in the world, with the highest average unemployment rate in recent history, and with the highest level of disbelief in the country's institutions. For the general population and also for the evangelical segment of the population, issues such as public security and access to income are now heavily on people’s radar screens. Research from the Institute of Religious Studies has identified the fact that believers, and also elected legislators from the evangelical universe in Brazil, are connected to these demands and social dynamics that do not only concern their religious identification. At the same time, these are demands that take on more punitive approaches, controlling order, morals, and the family.

And how does this show up in recent elections?

In electoral terms, the forces of the Brazilian extreme right perceive this clamor and present themselves as the camp that will bring alternatives to this scenario of multiple crises, fears, and losses. What we have seen since the elections in 2014, but more actively since 2018, is a twin movement: the political work that mobilizes the religious to communicate with new electoral bases and the religious leaders who use the space of institutional politics to impose morality of the population as a general agenda. It is not just, therefore, about certain religious groups seeking to impose their morals on the entire society via State policies, but it is also about the new facets of Brazilian conservatism using religion to communicate with the people and the popular classes to create symbolic and affective bonds with them.

Since 2010, we have observed continuities and changes in the spectrum of candidacies that mobilize religious identities in electoral processes. Candidates that adopt the religious title on the ballot, for example, have grown with each electoral cycle, and this growth is concentrated in those candidates with an evangelical identity. But this identification in name, in itself, has not guaranteed electoral success. In addition to this explicit identification at the ballot box, the mobilization of a more diffuse Christian identity has also grown in political campaigns and legislation, sometimes using biblical languages ​​and symbols and, at others, mobilizing religious moralities in a broad way.

Still in electoral cycles, but looking at the motivating elements of the electorate, different research projects have identified that some axes more strongly mobilize this base, which is considered religious and Christian in the defense of morals, the family, control, and in promoting order in the field of public security, all of which is permeated by a strong anti-left position.

It is important to point out that these are not agendas, nor ways of reacting to social demands, that are present only among the electorate from an evangelical religious base. It is also present among voters of different conservative stripes, with or without religious identification. There are many agenda items linked to what we have come to call “Bolsonarism,” which is an identification not necessarily with the figure of President Bolsonaro, but with the agenda of his government that is defended by its bases of support. This was notable in the 2018 elections, with spillovers into the elections for mayors and governors in 2020 and 2022, even with Jair Bolsonaro's defeat for re-election. President Bolsonaro continued and continues to be an efficient electoral leader also through strong adherence to the agendas that elected him.

There are other key elements that remain powerful regarding the presence of Christians in elections in Brazil. On the one hand, it is important to note the role of large evangelical Pentecostal corporations, such as the Assemblies of God and the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and their real influence in elections for the legislative and executive powers. On the other hand, coordination between evangelical and Catholic politicians and candidates is growing. This rapprochement between Catholic and ultra-conservative evangelical political leaders is not new, but it took on new forms from 2010 onwards, with the reactions to the Third National Human Rights Program (the PNDH-3) and its proposals for advancement in the recognition of women's rights and sexual diversity in the country. This alliance that takes place within the scope of civil society and politics has expanded to other agendas such as education and public security, which includes issues related to gender.

The reaction of these religious-based political forces to advances in the expansion of citizens’ rights was not the only factor for this adherence to political and electoral forces, both in Brazil and internationally, of the extreme or the "new" right. Politicians – religious or not – have mobilized religion and its more individualizing and dogmatic contemporary forms as a way of presenting alternatives that would allow for a return to order, predictability, security, and unity. This is what the sociologist Christina Vital da Cunha calls the "rhetoric of loss," and the political scientist Flavia Biroli analyzes in the light of the "moralization of uncertainties."

*Ana Carolina Evangelista is a researcher and executive director of the Institute for Religious Studies (ISER).

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