Editorial

Brazilian Independence Day in Bolsonaro’s Strategy 

As he did last year when facing political headwinds, President Jair Bolsonaro attempted to use the anniversary of Brazilian independence on September 7 for political gain. The date was especially significant this time, however, because it marked the bicentennial of the country’s break with Portugal. Addressing throngs of supporters clad in green and yellow in Brasília, Bolsonaro used the occasion as a campaign rally, urging voters to compare him and his record—and his wife—with his strongest opponent, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has led every poll taken this year. In fact, in his rally in Brasília and in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro later in the day, he didn’t even mention Brazilian independence from Portugal two hundred years ago. There were some concerns that Bolsonaro and his allies might use the event to stage an attack on Brazilian institutions. These were not unfounded given how the president talked about the day in the weeks leading up to it. He called September 7, for example, “our last chance,” a vaguely ominous designation.

Lula unsurprisingly criticized in the strongest of terms the way that Bolsonaro politicized a moment of great civic importance for all Brazilians. The two-hundred-year anniversary of Brazilian independence might have been an occasion to reflect on the country’s achievements as well as its many shortcomings. Bolsonaro, Lula suggested, is uninterested in any such consideration. In a video released to mark the date, the former president reminded viewers that he had never used September 7 festivities for his own political ends while in office, even during campaign years. He not only knocked Bolsonaro for campaigning on the holiday but also for the tenor and nature of that campaign, observing that the demonstrations of Bolsonaro supporters resembled a “Ku Klux Klan rally.”

As Bolsonaro made clear during his September 7 addresses, he hopes to use First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro to try to mitigate his incredible rejection rates among female voters. Lula’s wife, Rosângela da Silva—or Janja as she is already universally known—is also figuring prominently in the campaign. For the most part, these appeals seem to be having limited effects. The state of the presidential race, in fact, seems relatively stable. This is bad news for the incumbent who hoped to have closed the gap between him and Lula by now. It was thought that a series of political maneuvers by the president involving, for example, welfare payments and targeted subsidies might have yielded more tangible benefits by now. It is unclear what else Bolsonaro might do to try to expand his electoral base. In the United States, getting voters to show up at the polls is a major priority for any campaign. With that in mind, candidates often aim to inspire their base to turn out in high numbers, reducing the incentive sometimes to appeal to voters disinclined to support them. In Brazil, by contrast, voting is required, leading to much higher rates of participation. This means that a base turnout strategy isn’t in Bolsonaro’s interest. He simply does not have enough of the population strongly backing him at the moment. Whether he can—or if he even wants to—speak to voters who are reluctant to back him in 2022, whether or not they supported him last time, is an open question in the final weeks of the first round of this campaign.

Highlights

• DATAFOLHA POLL. On September 2, the Datafolha Institute released its first poll since the heated presidential debate hosted by Rede Bandeirantes. Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party received 45% of intended votes in the first-round elections, a two percent decrease from a poll conducted prior to the debate. The incumbent, Jair Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party, maintained his position with 32% support. Labeled as the best performers in the debate, third-way candidates Simone Tebet of the Brazilian Democratic Movement and Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party both saw increased popularity in the polls. Ciro Gomes rose from 7% to 9%, and Simone Tebet went from 2% to 5%.

• BTG/FSB POLL. A poll released by BTG/FSB on September 6 only revealed growth in the campaign of Simone Tebet of the Brazilian Democratic Movement. After winning the debate hosted by Rede Bandeirantes according to the Datafolha Institute, the Senator representing Mato Grosso do Sul rose from 4% to 6% of intended votes. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party receive 42% support, the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party 34%, and Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party 8%.

• COMBATTING ELECTORAL VIOLENCE. The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) officially announced the creation of an intelligence center that will work closely with the National Council of Commander-Generals of the Military Police (CNCG) to address political violence in the 2022 electoral process. According to Alexandre de Moraes, the President of the TSE, the group will collect and process “information of interest to public security during the 2022 electoral period.” The working group, led by Moraes, will have an equal composition of representatives from the TSE and the CNCG.

• SIMONE TEBET & THE FIRST LADY. A campaign advertisement starring first-lady Michelle Bolsonaro became the target of an action presented by Senator Simone Tebet of the Brazilian Democratic Movement to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE). In the campaign video, which was aired on August 30, President Bolsonaro fails to appear, showcasing only his wife instead. According to Tebet, the video violated campaigning rules since Michelle exceeded the time limit in which candidates' supporters can be shown on television or heard on the radio. Responding to Tebet’s claim, Minister Maria Claudia Bucchianeri of the Superior Electoral Court ordered the removal of the advertisement on the grounds that the first lady is indeed a supporter of the President, and thus, her time on screen could not have exceeded 25% of the advertising time. Bolsonaro’s team plans on appealing this decision, and the first lady has called it an attempt to “shut up” other women.

• ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEM. On September 2, the Superior Electoral Court concluded its process of assessing the integrity and authenticity of the programs used in the electronic voting process. “There is nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing secret in the Electoral Justice. The only secret and confidential thing is the voter's vote, and that the Electoral Justice guarantees that this will happen,” said Alexandre de Moraes, president of the TSE and a justice of the Superior Federal Court (STF). In light of Bolsonaro’s baseless attacks on electronic voting machines, electoral justices have expressed their hope that this process will assure Brazilian voters that this year’s elections will indeed be transparent and democratic.

• WHAT’S AT STAKE IN BRAZIL’S 2022 ELECTIONS. On Thursday September 15, Washington Brazil Office, CEPR and Global Alliance for a Green New Deal will host a panel with Josi Kaingang, an Indigenous leader and UN Consultant on Indigenous Rights; Sabrina Fernandes of the International Research Group on Authoritarians and Research Strategies of Rosa Luxemburgo Foundation; Ricardo Abramovay, Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of São Paulo; and Pedro Paulo Z. Bastos, Professor of Economics and the State University of Campinas. The panel will be moderated by Juliana de Moraes Pinheiro from the Washington Brazil Office and will explore how Brazil’s 2022 elections could transform global hopes for a new economic paradigm that functions within our planetary limits. Panelists will offer diverse perspectives on the impact of Brazil’s electoral results domestically in Latin America and beyond. The event will start at 13.00-14.00hrs (Brazil) /18-19.00hrs (CEST) /17.00-18.00 (GMT+1) / 12.00-13.00hrs (EDT). Online participation through registration at:

  https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUrfu6rrDIrGNWa5ogD64C18lMPfFAog0C6

Feature Article

Governmental Communication in Brazil: Dilemmas for the Present and the Future

by Liziane Soares Guazina

The digital communicative environment in Brazil has been marked by toxic disputes over visibility. Misinformation, hate speech, distrust in institutions, and attacks on political opponents are strategic resources for positioning the images of public figures.

In this context, the challenges of governmental communication in the country are increasing. Historically, governmental communication has been understood by Brazilian scholars and communication professionals as a fundamental element of informing the public in the context of building a democratic society. 

In other words, governmental communication practices rely on the notion that the communication by the government and State bodies must be guided by principles that consider the public interest as a priority. This type of communication, carried out by government institutions, and leaders, presupposes a democratic regime in order to be effective, with the commitment to work for its maintenance and improvement.

The main governmental communication objective must be to strengthen democratic life by complying with the principles of public communication: expanding access to information, encouraging participation, guaranteeing the transparency of the State, promoting rights, listening to citizens, and even fighting disinformation. 

These principles are especially relevant when talking about campaigns and information produced on official websites, platforms, and apps. The Brazilian State has a strong digital presence and practically all legislative, executive, and judiciary bodies at the federal level have institutional pages. In addition, according to a survey by the Internet Steering Committee in Brazil in 2021, 99% of federal agencies and 92% of state agencies had profiles on social networks. In addition, 49% of federal agencies and 46% of state agencies maintain profiles on apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram.

This digital presence, however, contains ambiguities. Not only government agencies maintain profiles, but also government agents distribute information publicly on private platforms. During the Covid-19 pandemic, authorities published disinformation and disclosed decisions based on flagrant misinformation. The results of the Report on Disinformation, Social Media and Covid-19 in Brazil show how the authorities played a key role in legitimizing disinformation during the pandemic. According to the Report (p. 24), when disinformation comes from authorities, that content tends to spread faster in social media and reach more people than that published by ordinary people or automated accounts.

Such content, the Report shows, was shared in private profiles of government authorities on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and Instagram. It was guided by public policies of the Ministry of Health, as in the case of encouraging the use of the ineffective hydro chloroquine to combat Covid-19.

In addition to institutional profiles, those pages produced by the government agents usually constitute the very “face” of the government, as these sites issue information on a daily basis. The dissemination of content organized according to a framework of ideologically radicalized and personalist perceptions violates the principles of public communication that is committed to institutional impersonality.

The dissemination of this content has the clear objective of stimulating the politicization of any public theme for the purpose of mobilizing followers, using appeals to emotion and intensifying the conflict between us and them. The set of personalist and negationist strategies reflects a process of the privatization of the dissemination of public information and the emptying of the institutional character of governmental communication. This jeopardizes trust in institutions and their commitment to the public interest.

Even with the strict rules defined by the electoral legislation in 2022, which include the suspension of content that can be characterized as institutional advertising or that favor specific candidates, government information continues to include false and personal content disseminated by senior government agents, such as attacks against the electoral system and the electronic ballot box.

Civil society must mobilize to ensure a healthy political environment during and after the election period. The political groups that make use of these resources have gained centrality in the public debate. Even if they are defeated at the polls, they will remain present in the political dispute with a powerful arsenal of communication channels and digital mobilization strategies.

More than ever, there must be a renewed commitment to the public nature of government communication, which requires immediate actions to rebuild trust in the information produced and disseminated by all levels of the Brazilian State.

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Liziane Soares Guazina is Visiting Scholar at the University of Turim, Italy, professor on the Graduate Program in Communication at the University of Brasília, and Research Fellow at the 21st Century Populism Observatory. She holds a doctorate in Communication from the University of Brasília.

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