Explaining Brazil #220: The last days before Brazil’s presidential runoff

On Monday night, President Bolsonaro’s Communications Minister, Fábio Faria, and campaign coordinator Fabio Wajngarten held an impromptu press conference outside the president’s office, promising to deliver bombastic information that could turn the election on its head.

They claimed that radio stations around Brazil had not been broadcasting mandatory free-to-air ads from Jair Bolsonaro’s campaign, alleging that over 150,000 30-second ads were not played.

The problem, however, is that they issued no proof to back up these allegations.

A complaint made to the Superior Electoral Court was quickly thrown out, with chief justice Alexandre de Moraes saying that the president’s campaign would have to come up with “serious evidence or documents.”

With only days to go until the crucial runoff election, President Bolsonaro has gone to great lengths to suggest electoral authorities are pushing the needle in favor of his opponent and the election favorite, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

It is true that the election isn’t taking place on a level playing field — but that is because President Bolsonaro is taking advantage of his power to use the Brazilian state as an electoral tool, often breaking the law in the process.

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Guest:

• Beatriz Rey is a columnist for The Brazilian Report. She is an SNF Agora Visiting Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and an APSA Congressional Fellow (2021-2022) and holds a Ph.D. in political science from Syracuse University and an M.A. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
• Amanda Audi is a Brasília correspondent for The Brazilian Report. She is the former executive director of Congresso em Foco and worked as a reporter for The Intercept Brasil, Folha de S. Paulo, O Globo, Gazeta do Povo, and Poder360, among others. In 2019, she won the Comunique-se Award for best-written media reporter and won the Mulher Imprensa award for web journalism in 2020.

This episode used music from Uppbeat. License codes: ZPBRN08JSELKNBYS, XJYFYM8ES2DZYBU2, OWYMGTOIXO3IC5F5, NSKF0FI3R2FOJ8IN.

Video:

Watch our special 2022 live broadcast. The Brazilian Report team hosted special guests on Election Day for a five-hour broadcast. Guests: Mario Sergio Lima (Medley Advisors), Mauricio Savarese (The Associated Press), Natalie Unterstell (Talanoa Institute).

Background reading:

• Documents obtained by The Brazilian Report show that bank representatives have access to private data from millions of low-income voters and are offering them payroll deduction loans. A part of Jair Bolsonaro’s re-election strategy, these loans can easily become debt traps.
• We have launched a special 2022 election report with everything you need to know about the races for Congress, governorships, and, of course, the presidency. Buy it here! Use the promo code Explaining2022 for a 20-percent discount.
• Arguably Brazil’s biggest pop star of the moment, singer Anitta endorsed former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and, at one point, even gave him campaign advice. Her endorsement was believed to have been consequential with younger voters — but first-round results showed it wasn’t enough to beat Jair Bolsonaro outright.
• Read our October 5 issue of the Brazil Daily newsletter: How the presidential runoff campaign has been co-opted by religion.
• An exclusive survey by the media monitoring company NewsWhip — carried out at the request of The Brazilian Report — showed a spike in the number of articles published about the relationship between Mr. Bolsonaro and the Freemasons, as well as about supposed links between Lula and the Devil.

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• #elections
• #jairBolsonaro
• #lula