Initial assessment is that the episode is an attempt to appropriate the flag; could also put TSE in a sticky situation
O Power 360 found that the command of the campaign of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) considers that he should not go to the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) to question the flag of Brazil extended in the Planalto Palace by order of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
The assessment is that the president is trying to appropriate the symbol. In addition, triggering the Court could create a discussion around the flag ban, which would benefit Bolsonaro. Before the 1st round, for example, the president aired the information that the TSE could veto the use of Brazilian soccer team shirts on voting day, which was not done.
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Finally, Lula’s campaign understands that even a victory in the Court – if it were triggered – could lead to criticism of the TSE and feed Bolsonarist groups around the speech that the Court wants to ban the symbol.
The president said in a broadcast on social media that he had the flag put up.
“I don’t think anyone will have the courage to say ‘get it out of there’, otherwise I’m going to give you a fine of I don’t know how much a day’. It is our flag of Brazil”he said, referring to TSE decisions that set a fine in case of non-compliance.
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O Power 360 asked experts if the use of the flag can constitute public good advertising, which is prohibited. They diverged.
For Renato Ribeiro de Almeida, academic coordinator of Abradep (Brazilian Academy of Electoral and Political Law), the flag should be removed from the Planalto for featuring irregular propaganda. According to him, although it is a national symbol, Bolsonaro’s candidacy makes use of “ostentatious” of the flag to publicize the campaign itself.
“This is not a place where the flag is usually placed. In the middle of the 2nd round, we have an innovation, with a flag of this size, which implicitly alludes to the candidacy of the President of the Republic. I emphasize that, given the particularity of the moment in which we are living, the presence of the national flag has another connotation, other than that of alluding to the nation.“, said.
“Although it is the national symbol, the flag at Palácio do Planalto, given the special context of the campaign, given the context we are experiencing – in which one of the candidates makes ostensible use of the national flag as a tool to publicize the campaign itself –, I I understand that at this particular point we have an irregular public good propaganda”continued.
On July 15th, the TRE-RS (Tribunal Regional Eleitoral do Rio Grande do Sul) decided that there would be no specific restrictions in Brazilian legislation on the use of the flag, since it is a national symbol, according to the article 13, paragraph 1 of the Constitution.
To Power 360Judge Caetano Cuervo, who is a member of the Court, said that state symbols do not have a partisan connotation nor are they linked to candidates.
“So, at first, there is no way to see in the Brazilian flag – in its traditional and correct design – a political party propaganda. Even more so when placed in public buildings. Because the buildings are where the flags, par excellence, are present. So it is natural that the flags are in these places”said.
“We recently had a discussion about this, due to a ban on the use of the flag, and the Court understood that the use could not be prohibited, precisely because it is a national symbol and has no partisan connotation. It is a symbol of the state and the country. In spite of all this, nothing prevents that in a specific case, in the face of some specific circumstance that distorts this symbol, there can be a different analysis. But, in principle, there is no way to perceive electoral propaganda on the flag”he concluded.
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