Evaluation-Brazil’s Bolsonaro caught off guard by marketing campaign’s ugly closing chapter By Reuters

By Anthony Boadle and Ricardo Brito

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s unexpectedly shut presidential race has taken an unsightly flip within the closing weeks forward of an Oct. 30 runoff vote, even by the bruising requirements of the previous yr, with insinuations of cannibalism, pedophilia and satan worship.

The tone shifted so shortly that the marketing campaign of President Jair Bolsonaro, who received workplace 4 years in the past with an aggressive digital assault on rivals, was placed on the defensive, shedding treasured time for his technique to come back from behind and win reelection.

Two senior aides to Bolsonaro mentioned his marketing campaign was shocked by the effectiveness of assaults from leftist challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and allies, who seized on each outdated movies and up to date slip-ups to go away the right-wing incumbent scrambling.

“It did us numerous injury,” one of many marketing campaign aides mentioned on situation of anonymity.

In a single line of assault, Lula allies dug up a 2016 interview wherein Bolsonaro mentioned he was prepared to eat human flesh in an unspecified indigenous ritual. In one other, they circulated outdated photos of Bolsonaro talking at Masonic lodges, thought-about pagan temples by a few of his evangelical Christian allies.

In probably the most explosive assault but, Lula’s marketing campaign made an assault advert from Bolsonaro’s anecdote on a Friday podcast about visiting the house of adolescent Venezuelan migrant ladies who he instructed have been making ready to prostitute themselves.

The president received courtroom injunctions that took that assault advert off the air and stored the topic out of a debate with Lula final Sunday. Bolsonaro has denied any affiliation with cannibalism or pagan rituals and branded the insinuations of pedophilia as slanderous lies. However the topics have dominated marketing campaign protection and on-line conversations for days.

One monitoring ballot discovered Lula’s benefit, which narrowed to simply three proportion factors earlier than the weekend, was again as much as 52% to 45% over Bolsonaro by Tuesday, based on a political consultancy that requested anonymity to debate personal surveys.

Public polls, launched each week or two, proceed to point out a roughly steady race, with Lula holding a bonus of round 5 proportion factors as he did within the first-round vote on Oct. 2.

However each week that passes with out Bolsonaro gaining floor is a battle received by Lula, who was Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010.

“Bolsonaro has turn into a sufferer of his personal weaponized communications technique that muddies public debate with sarcasm, mockery and humiliation aimed toward dividing Brazilian society,” mentioned Fabio Malini, a professor of latest media on the Federal College of Espirito Santo.

‘BRAZILIAN SOAP OPERA’

Bolsonaro isn’t shy about returning hearth.

“The main target now could be to assault Lula and set off fears of him returning to energy,” mentioned a second Bolsonaro marketing campaign supply.

Bolsonaro’s marketing campaign aides say their polling indicated 8% to 10% of Lula supporters may nonetheless be swayed with arguments {that a} leftist presidency may set off crime waves, financial break and setbacks for social conservatives.

The incumbent’s broadcast adverts already counsel that Lula will legalize abortion and shut down church buildings, which the previous president has repeatedly denied.

A extra outlandish line of assault from Bolsonaro allies compelled Lula’s marketing campaign to make a direct denial on social media: “Lula has no pact nor has he ever conversed with the satan.”

However in contrast to the 2018 presidential marketing campaign, when Lula’s Employees Social gathering was largely remoted and unprepared for a digital soiled struggle within the closing weeks of the race, the previous president has an array of allies becoming a member of him within the on-line trenches.

Web character Felipe Neto, with 15 million followers on Twitter and almost 17 million on Instagram, as soon as pushed for the impeachment of Lula’s Employees Social gathering successor, however now defends Lula day by day on-line whereas amplifying assaults on Bolsonaro.

Congressman Andre Janones, whose centrist get together had proven help for Bolsonaro’s agenda in Congress, known as off his personal presidential run to help Lula, bringing a bulldog tenacity to on-line debates.

“Janones is a spin physician of the digital world,” mentioned Malini, the brand new media specialist. “The fierce assaults and counter-attacks based mostly on rumor, half-truths and innuendo have made this election a Brazilian cleaning soap opera.”