Pastors with 50 million followers on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter give a virtual platform to Jair Bolsonaro (PL), candidate for reelection in the race for Palácio do Planalto. Together, the ten largest religious leaders supporting the president echo messages of the fight of “good” against “evil” and of a “war”, in line with the president’s speech. In reaction to Bolsonaro’s advance, the campaign of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) decided to create profiles on social networks aimed at evangelicals.
Of the religious leaders identified by the Estadão on digital platforms, three of them, with 23.3 million followers, make an explicit video call for the September 7 acts. In the recording, an announcer repeats the Bolsonarist slogans “God, homeland, family and freedom” and “our flag will never be red”.
Second place in the polls, the president intends to show strength in the Bicentennial of Independence, after putting in check, without evidence, the honesty of electronic voting machines. The Federal Police never found evidence of fraud in the equipment, unlike the days of paper voting.
During an election period, the support of pastors is valuable. The mission, according to them, is to “save” the country. “I invite you, with your hands up, to pray. We have on this screen the Flag of Brazil, 2022 is a year of war. We are at war. It is an ideological battle, a battle of philosophies, it is a cultural battle”, said Pastor André Valadão, from the Lagoinha Baptist Church, in January, in a harbinger of what would be 2022.
The sermon was published on Instagram, a network in which the leader has 5.3 million followers. It was in a cult with Valadão that First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro said that the Planalto was “consecrated to demons”. With the strategy of taking messages from the altar to the networks, pastors reverberate, thus, Bolsonarism.
One of them is Claudio Duarte, with more than 13.9 million followers. From Projeto Recomeçar Church, the leader introduces himself as “a seriously funny pastor”. Between sermons and humor sketches, he uses the networks to publish photos with the president. “I am Bolsonaro’s voter, I am his electoral corporal and I am his intercessor,” he said in a video. Wanted by the report, Valadão and Duarte did not manifest.
ELECTORAL ASSET. For political scientist Vinicius do Valle, director of the Evangelical Observatory, acting on the networks is an electoral asset that complements the cults. “Whenever a religious leader is taking a stand, supporting a candidate, he knows that his prestige that comes from one (religious) sphere is transferred to another (political),” he said.
The evangelical segment, highlighted Valle, is not homogeneous – the message of a leader is not always followed by the faithful. However, for him, the use of digital platforms is effective in political communication by reaching a wider audience of followers, in addition to those present at the cults.
In the electoral race, the appeal to faith has had an effect. Bolsonaro grew in the evangelical segment, which corresponds to 25% of the sample of the most recent Datafolha poll, released on Thursday. It rose from 43% to 49%, while Lula fluctuated from 33% to 32%.
Yesterday, at a rally in Vale do Anhangabaú, in São Paulo, Lula addressed religion and politics. “The State does not have to have a religion, all religions must be defended by the State. But I also want to say: churches don’t have to be gone,” he said. According to him, “there are people” who “are making the church a political platform”.
To stop Bolsonaro’s attacks, the PT campaign informed the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), also yesterday, of the opening in the networks of the “Evangelicals with Lula” accounts. In a note, the advisory said that the initiative came from religious people. “Some evangelical sectors – both from the coalition parties and outside of it – contacted us with an interest in working with evangelical communities in the campaign, and, for this to be possible, we registered these sites and profiles in the TSE.”
Lula was once close to pastors and pulled them into his orbit of power. Creator of the March for Jesus, apostle Estevam Hernandes, from Renascer em Cristo, today, is one of Bolsonaro’s main electoral cables – in his profile picture, he already appears next to the president. He, for example, was on the occasion of the sanction of the law that established a day for the march, in 2003, during the PT government. Wanted, the apostle did not respond.
DISTANCE. The prestige given to religious leaders in the past is not enough now. Lula’s new adviser in communication with evangelicals, Pastor Paulo Marcelo Schallenberger speaks only with 260,000 followers on the networks. Pastor Henrique Vieira (PSOL-RJ), founder of the Baptist Church of the Way and pre-candidate for federal deputy, has 913 thousand followers.
According to Flávio Conrado, PhD in Anthropology from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), the adhesion to Bolsonarism is explained by the occupation of the public machine. “Although figures like Marcelo Crivella have taken on a ministry in the PT government, churches have never been seen taking over spaces like the Ministry of Human Rights, Justice or the Ministry of Education.”
Lula’s former ally and founder of the Cathedral of Revival, deputy Pastor Marco Feliciano (PL-SP) changed sides. “I am in favor of Bolsonaro because he defends Christian values and the traditional family. I am against Lula because he defends the subversion of these values. It’s a matter of survival,” said Feliciano to Estadão.
To a greater or lesser extent, Silas Malafaia, Damares Alves, Valdemiro Santiago, José Wellington Bezerra da Costa, Josué Valandro Jr. and Bishop Robson Rodovalho support the president in the networks. Candidate for the Senate for the Federal District, Damares had a video removed, by order of the Justice, for claiming that the Lula government taught young people to use crack. When questioned, she said, in a note, that she will only manifest herself in the records. The other leaders did not respond.
The information is from the newspaper. The State of São Paulo.
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