The Lula campaign moves to shut down public discussion of his conviction
How close is reflected in recent moves by Brazil’s seven-member electoral tribunal, or TSE. Led by a notoriously anti-Bolsonaro judge, Alexandre de Moraes, the TSE has grabbed extraordinary powers and is using them to gag Lula critics.
Brazil’s Constitution forbids censorship, and the court’s brazen crackdown on free speech has alarmed the nation. But Judge de Moraes, who is also president of the Supreme Court, shows no sign of backing down. If Brazil’s democracy is at risk, it’s not, as the chattering classes allege, because of Mr. Bolsonaro.
The president finished second in the Oct. 2 first round, with 43.2% of the vote. Lula received 48.4%, about 6.2 million more votes than Mr. Bolsonaro. Another 8.5 million votes went to Simone Tebet, who finished third, and Ciro Gomes, who finished fourth. Their parties have endorsed Lula but the rank-and-file may not go along.
Ms. Tebet is from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, which Mr. Bolsonaro easily won in the first round. Mr. Gomes and his party have a longstanding grudge against Lula. Roughly 34 million voters who didn’t cast a ballot in the first round could turn out Sunday.
Lula and the Workers Party hawk socialism as a cure for economic misery. His core constituencies are the very poor, the elite, the greens and the woke. Moderate social democrats have long dreaded Lula, but they’re rallying around him because they loathe Mr. Bolsonaro.
The president’s support comes from the working and middle classes, budding entrepreneurs who operate in the real economy, social conservatives, land owners and the agricultural industry. Popular center-right politicians like Romeu Zema, Novo Party governor of the state of Minas Gerais, and Tarcísio de Freitas, Republican Party candidate in the runoff for the governorship of São Paulo, are campaigning for him.
For-profit news and opinion channels that deliver content not offered by left-leaning media are also playing a role. The business has boomed and Lula doesn’t like it.
The former president is particularly sensitive about his corruption conviction in 2017. It was overturned on a technicality in 2021 and he was released. But when Brazilians are reminded of what sent him to prison, they are apt to recall the enormous bribery and graft scandals that emerged during the 14 years—2003-16—when his Workers’ Party held the presidency. Lula has turned to Judge de Moraes for help.
By law the tribunal is supposed to judge “facts known to be untrue” during the campaign and has censored offenders. For example, it has legally censored the Lula campaign for its claims that Mr. Bolsonaro practices cannibalism.
It doesn’t, however, have the authority to approve or disapprove of public opinion. Nevertheless, on Oct. 13, responding to a complaint by the Lula camp, the court ruled that the media company Brasil Paralelo had to remove content that discussed his conviction because it contained “disinformation, altering the reality of events related to corruption, affecting Lula’s honor and image.”
The TSE magistrate assigned to report on court proceedings—along with two other magistrates—dissented. He pointed out that the material in question was “based on journalistic articles with facts declared during the period in which Lula was at the head of the Federal Executive Branch, ‘so there is no plausible justification for its withdrawal,’ ” according to the TSE website.
On Oct. 18 the court went further, instructing YouTube to demonetize four Brazilian channels, including Brasil Paralelo, on grounds that they carry fake news. On Thursday came the TSE resolution. As Brazilian journalist Diego Escosteguy explained on the news website O Bastidor last week, the TSE granted itself the power “to arbitrate what is true or false in the political debate” and to “suspend accounts, profiles and channels” and ban Brazilians from “entire platforms.”
Last week the court censored former Supreme Court President Marco Aurelio Mello because he dared to say that Lula was never acquitted. The statement is true even if it makes Lula bristle.
To demonstrate how far from Brazil’s free-speech norms the TSE behavior falls, Mr. Escosteguy quoted Judge de Moraes, writing from the Supreme Court bench in 2018: “The fundamental right to freedom of expression is not only aimed at protecting opinions that are supposedly true, admirable or conventional, but also those that are dubious, exaggerated, reprehensible, satirical, humorous, as well as those not shared by the majorities. It should be noted that even erroneous statements are under the protection of this constitutional guarantee.”
Now the electoral tribunal wants to dispense with these civil liberties. It makes one wonder what Brazil will look like if Lula wins.
Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.
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