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The Guardian 10/09/2022: "I'd eat an Indian"

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The Guardian 10/09/2022: "I'd eat an Indian"

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/09/brazil-jair-bolsonaro-cannibalism-boast
Allegations on President Jair Bolsonaro brags about being willing to engage in cannabalism during an interview with foreign journalists have been brought up to light once again.
This may or may not affect the publics view of Bolsonaro but it emphasizes the lengths social media is willing to go to bring up controversies during important periods such as an election.

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It was a shocking statement, even for a politician who has glorified torturers and called for rivals to be shot.

"I'd eat an Indian, no problem at all," Jair Bolsonaro bragged to a foreign journalist in 2016, as he described a trip to an Indigenous community where he had purportedly been offered the chance to consume human flesh.

Indigenous leaders have rejected Bolsonaro's boast as yet another lie from Brazil's far-right president. The Yanomami people from the territory Bolsonaro claims to have visited say they have never engaged in such acts.

However, footage of Bolsonaro's cannibalism comments - first broadcast on his official YouTube channel six years ago - has gone viral on social media and been seized on by Brazil's opposition as further proof of the president's depravity.

"Bolsonaro has revealed that he would eat human flesh," a television advert produced by Bolsonaro's leftist rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, declared on Friday after the remarks were unearthed.

Lula nearly beat Bolsonaro in the first round of Brazil's presidential election last Sunday and hopes to finish the job when 156 million Brazilians vote in a second-round showdown between the two men on 30 October.

In its efforts to re-elect Lula, Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010, his campaign has dug deep into Bolsonaro's extensive back catalogue of callous and inflammatory pronouncements.

One recent Lula advert shows Bolsonaro shoving a female politician and calling her a "bitch". In another scene the rightwinger mocks Covid victims and pretends to be gasping for air.

But Friday's campaign ad was perhaps the most shocking to date.

Bolsonaro's communications minister, Fábio Faria, called Lula's advert "fake news" and claimed the comments had been distorted. Bolsonaro's lawyers demanded electoral authorities ban the ad.

An analysis of the full 76-minute interview with the New York Times journalist Simon Romero leaves little doubt about the nature of Bolsonaro's remarks.

After describing the destitution he witnessed during a visit to Haiti, Bolsonaro moves from discussing "unhygienic" Haitian women offering sex to making claims about cannibalism allegedly being perpetrated in the Amazon's Yanomami territory.

"There was this time I was in Surucuru ... and an Indian had died and they were cooking him. They cook Indians. It's their culture," Bolsonaro claims to the correspondent's apparent befuddlement.

"Their bodies?" the journalist replies.

"Their bodies," Bolsonaro confirms.

"But not to eat?" the journalist asks.

"Yes, to eat," answers Bolsonaro, then an obscure congressman. "They cook it for two or three days and then eat it with banana. I wanted to see an Indian being cooked but the guy said if you go, you have to eat it. 'I'll eat it,' I said. But no one else in my group wanted to go ... so I didn't go. But I'd eat an Indian, no problem at all. It's their culture."

Yanomami leaders and anthropologists denounced Bolsonaro's "delirious" and prejudiced claims. "My people aren't cannibals ... This doesn't exist nor has it ever existed, not even among our ancestors," the Yanomami activist Júnior Yanomami told the Folha de São Paulo newspaper.

"Bolsonaro is a compulsive liar," tweeted Sônia Guajajara, an Indigenous leader who has just been elected to congress.

Lula denied spreading misinformation. "I saw the footage ... It's no invention, we're simply letting people know what our opponent is like," he told supporters, claiming foreigners were shunning Brazil "for fear of the cannibal".

On Saturday a preliminary ruling from an electoral judge ordered Lula's Workers' party (PT) to withdraw an advert that risked damaging Bolsonaro's reputation and affecting "the integrity of the electoral process". The judge argued that Bolsonaro's remarks "referred to a specific experience in an Indigenous community, lived according to the values and morality existing in this society".

The decision appeared to close the stable door after the horse had bolted. By Sunday, social media was awash with mentions of "Cannibal Bolsonaro" and memes likening the president to Hannibal Lecter and the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The footage of Bolsonaro's declaration had been seen millions of times.

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'I'd eat an Indian': rivals seize on unearthed Bolsonaro cannibalism boast

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It was a shocking statement, even for a politician who has glorified torturers and called for rivals to be shot. "I'd eat an Indian, no problem at all," Jair Bolsonaro bragged to a foreign journalist in 2016, as he described a trip to an Indigenous community where he had purportedly been offered the chance to consume human flesh.

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Reuters 10/3/2022: Right-wing wins in Brazil's Congress show staying power of 'Bolsonarismo'

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Reuters 10/3/2022: Right-wing wins in Brazil's Congress show staying power of 'Bolsonarismo'

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https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/right-wing-wins-brazils-congress-show-staying-power-bolsonarismo-2022-10-03/
The results are in! Lula is elected as the next president of Brazil.
Bolsonaro however, has his legislative supporters winning the majority of seats in Congress.
Bolsonaro vocally denies Lula's victory and has already consolidated a solid body to help him govern if he wins the Oct. 30 run offs.
Despite Lula's win of the vote, he will be facing a hard time in office with Bolsonaro's supporters.

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BRASILIA, Oct 3 (Reuters) - A strong election night for allies of President Jair Bolsonaro have given his party the most seats in both chambers of Congress, highlighting the enduring strength of his conservative movement even if he falls short of re-election.

His right-wing Liberal Party (PL), won 99 seats in the 513-member lower house, up from 77, and right-leaning parties allied with Bolsonaro now control half the chamber.

The bigger surprise in Sunday's voting was in the Senate where Bolsonaro's party won 13 of the 27 seats up for grabs, with two more possible in second-round runoffs, a party spokesman said.

"Against all odds and everyone, we won 2 million more votes this year than in 2018," Bolsonaro posted on social media in Monday's early hours. "We also elected the largest benches in the lower house and the Senate, which was our main priority."

Bolsonaro helped elect allies to the Senate who had trailed in opinion polls, such as former ministers Damares Alves and Paulo Pontes. Alves, an evangelical ally, defeated the Senate candidate from Bolsonaro's own party.

The strong right-wing showing in legislative and gubernatorial races, especially in more affluent southeast Brazil, made Bolsonaro the election's big winner. He also denied his leftist presidential rival Luis Inacio Lula da Silva outright victory and consolidated a political base that can help him govern if he wins the Oct. 30 run-off.

While most political analysts still see former president Lula winning, his victory is no longer a slam dunk.

Lula's Workers Party won 10 more seats in the lower house of Congress, where it remains the second-largest party with 68 representatives. But if elected, Lula will face a harder time getting legislation through a more conservative Congress.

Bolsonaro's allies also made advances in state politics, including races for governor.

His former Infrastructure Minister Tarcisio Freitas, who took part in motorcycle rallies with Bolsonaro, won the most votes for governor of Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest state, and will face Lula ally Fernando Haddad in an Oct. 30 runoff.

Bolsonaro boasted of helping to get eight governors elected outright, with hopes of electing eight more in the second round.

"This is the greatest victory for patriots in the history of Brazil: 60% of the Brazilian territory will be governed by those who defend our values ​​and fight for a freer nation," he tweeted.

Lula put an optimistic spin on the result, saying he was looking forward to another month on the campaign trail and the chance to debate Bolsonaro head-to-head.

Reporting by Anthony Boadle, Maria Carolina Marcello and Ricardo Brito Editing by Brad Haynes and Grant McCool

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Right-wing wins in Brazil's Congress show staying power of 'Bolsonarismo'

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BRASILIA, Oct 3 (Reuters) - A strong election night for allies of President Jair Bolsonaro have given his party the most seats in both chambers of Congress, highlighting the enduring strength of his conservative movement even if he falls short of re-election.

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Reuters 09/26/2022: Lula remains ahead of Bolsonaro as Brazilian election draws near.

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Reuters 09/26/2022: Lula remains ahead of Bolsonaro as Brazilian election draws near.

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https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/lula-remains-ahead-bolsonaro-brazil-election-looms-poll-2022-09-26/
Lula de Silva increased voter support by one percent the past week with 48% over Bolsonaro's 31%.
Bolsonaro's approval rate has also decreased by one percent, with his overall disproval rate at 47%.

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SAO PAULO, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Brazil presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva slightly widened his lead over President Jair Bolsonaro less than a week before the South American country's election, a poll by IPEC released on Monday showed.

In a first-round vote scheduled for Oct. 2, Lula reached 48% of voters' support against 31% for Bolsonaro, compared with 47% and 31% respectively, in the same poll a week ago, the survey showed.

Reporting by Carolina Pulice and Peter Frontini Editing by Chris Reese

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Lula remains ahead of Bolsonaro as Brazil election looms -poll

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SAO PAULO, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Brazil presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva slightly widened his lead over President Jair Bolsonaro less than a week before the South American country's election, a poll by IPEC released on Monday showed. In a first-round vote scheduled for Oct.

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Time 09/05/2022: Facebook failing to prevent repeat of Jan 6. in Brazil

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Time 09/05/2022: Facebook failing to prevent repeat of Jan 6. in Brazil

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https://time.com/6210985/brazil-facebook-whatsapp-election-disinformation/
Social media was used to spread Bolsonaro's movement on Jan 6, 2022.
"Only God can remove me from office" - Jair Bolsonaro
Bolsonaro governs through social media much more than Trump, and media outlets such as Facebook and Whatsapp are being accused of inciting a coup.

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Facebook's Owner Failing to Prevent Repeat of Jan. 6 in Brazil, Report Warns

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Facebook and Whatsapp owner Meta is failing to stop a Jan. 6-style movement gaining traction on the platforms in Brazil, a rights group warns

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Right-wing, far leaning
Current President of Brazil, comparable to President Trump
A former captain in the army
Made promises for pension and Brazilian state reform
Downplayed the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in over 600k deaths
Facilitate Brazilian citizens' to access weapons

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Left wing, far leaning
Former president 2003 - 2010
Increase protection measures for the Amazon Rainforest
Efforts made to eradicate hunger by reinforcing income transfer
Previously convicted of corruption and money laundering

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BBC 09/22/22: Brazil Election: Why it matters to the U.S.

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BBC 09/22/22: Brazil Election: Why it matters to the U.S.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62981625
Maria Sanches, BBC News Brazil, Washington

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In less than two weeks, one of the world's biggest democracies will hold what many are describing as its most important presidential election in years. The US has been watching this vote in Brazil closely. Why?

There aren't many issues that staunch opponents in Washington ever agree on.

But they are united on this.

"This is going to be one of the most intense and dramatic elections in the 21st Century," former Trump aide Steve Bannon tells the BBC.

"The fate of Brazil's democracy and of US relations with Brazil will be decided in the upcoming election," says Senator Patrick Leahy, one of a number of Democrats taking a strong interest in the election.

At a recent reception in Washington to mark 200 years since Brazil gained independence from Portugal, the talk was of little else.

There are several reasons why this election has grabbed the attention of the US - trade, democracy, Trump and climate change.

The fates of the two countries have felt entwined of late, as they face similar challenges and share common interests. Both endured huge death tolls in the pandemic and now face inflation levels above 8%.

There is record trade between them - aircraft, petroleum, iron and steel - and they also make similar commodities. While Brazil is the largest producer of soy and orange, followed by the US, respectively in second and fourth positions, the Americans are ahead in corn, beef, turkey and chicken production, with Brazil in second or third.

In 2021 Brazil became the country in which China invested the most, a blow to the Americans in their most obvious zone of influence in the Cold-War-like rivalry between Washington and Beijing.

So, interest in who takes power in Brazil - current President Jair Bolsonaro or former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva - was always going to be high. But what's different this time is the number of US officials talking publicly and privately about it, months before the vote.

"There is a greater interest and this is due to the threat of democratic rupture," says Brazilian scholar Carlos Gustavo Poggio, a specialist in Brazil-US relations and professor from Berea College in Kentucky.

The last election was peaceful, he said. "Now we have a president who does not make it very clear whether he will obey the results of the polls and who has a close relationship with the military."

Since winning the election in 2018, Bolsonaro has repeated accusations of electoral fraud without any evidence. Brazil has had electronic voting machines since 1996 - and no systematic fraud has ever been recorded.

During a recent visit to the UK to attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth, Bolsonaro said that if he received less than 60% of the votes then "something abnormal has happened" in the electoral court responsible for counting the votes and announcing the winner. In polling, he has never surpassed 35% and is about 10 percentage points behind Lula.

On other occasions he has said he will accept the election result but some have seen in his remarks echoes of Donald Trump's false claims of fraud after his defeat to Joe Biden.

"Brazil and the United States are mirrors of each other," says former Deputy US Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, who also served as US ambassador in Brazil in the early 2010s. What happens to one of these two democracies happens to the other.

What they stand for

left-wing, former trade union leader

increase protection measures for the Amazon

eradicate hunger in the country by strengthening income transfer programmes

resume multilateral international policy and regional leadership

right-wing populist, former army captain and backbench politician

made long-awaited pension reform and promises to continue reforming the Brazilian state

vows to battle gender ideology and govern based on Christian principles

facilitate access to weapons for ordinary citizens

In a recent address to the nation, Biden was clear in saying he believed Trump's Maga [Make America Great Again] movement was a threat to democracy. And some see the strong interest in these elections in Brazil as the US confronting its own ghosts of January 6th, when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol as Biden's election win was being certified.

In an interview with BBC Brasil, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, stated that "what needs to happen in Brazil are free and fair elections, using the institutional structures that have served you [Brazilians] well in the past".

A conversation between the head of the CIA, William Burns, and Bolsonaro's aides was leaked, in which Burns asked the Brazilian president to stop casting doubts on the elections. Bolsonaro denied those words were exchanged.

US politicians have been getting involved as well. Senator Leahy joined Bernie Sanders and four other Democratic senators to introduce a resolution supporting democratic institutions in Brazil. And in the lower chamber, the House of Representatives, Democrats tried and failed to pass a measure that would suspend military aid to Brazil if the army abandoned its neutrality.

"Sometimes it's formal, other times it's leaks, but it's all trying to pass along the message and the thinking of Washington," says Nick Zimmerman, senior consultant at the Brazil Institute and former White House foreign policy assistant in the Obama administration.

He thinks it speaks to a broader international foreign policy concern of Democrats and some Republicans about global threats to democracy. "The multilateral democratic order built after World War II is at risk in a way that it hasn't been over the past 80 years. And that is something for the United States to fight for and defend."

Questioning the electoral process is not the only similarity between Trump and Bolsonaro, who is also known as "Trump of the Tropics".

Both campaigned as outsiders, promising to fight the political elites, even though Bolsonaro was steeped in politics. Both encourage nationalism and gun ownership, which in the case of Brazil has led civilians to own more weapons than the Federal Police for the first time in the recent era. Both dominate social media.

"Bolsonaro is a great hero for all of us," says Bannon, who sees Brazil as a key part of a global populist movement. "He's at the level of [conservative authoritarian Hungarian prime minister] Viktor Orban as someone that has stood for sovereignty and really grassroots. He's got evangelicals, he's got working-class people. If you look at Brazil, it is very much like the Maga movement."

At the other side of this electoral contest, requesting a second chance from the Brazilian voters, is Lula, who ended his term in 2010 as the most popular president in the country's history but has since become an increasingly divisive figure.

Under his successor, Dilma Rousseff, the country plunged into recession and Lula was investigated and convicted for a bribery scandal. The fact his conviction was later annulled has not dimmed in some people's minds his association with a corrupt elite.

Beyond the intriguing contrast between the two main candidates, and the possibility of a contested election, there is another compelling reason why Brazil is on the agenda of American and European politicians - a factor that affects people the world over.

In recent years, Brazil has accelerated the process of deforestation of the Amazon, the largest tropical forest in the world. The Bolsonaro government reduced spending to prevent the devastation of the biome. Last year, its environment minister was investigated and accused by the US of being involved in illegal logging traffic.

"It is clear the challenge of development in the Amazon and the perception that Brazil's decisions matter to the rest of the world has increased interest," says Shannon.

During his 2020 election campaign, Biden suggested that Americans should lead the creation of an international billion-dollar fund that would help Brazil pay for the preservation of the forest area. The promise, however, never got off the ground. The main reason, according to people familiar with the matter, was the lack of confidence that the Bolsonaro administration would comply.

Lula has been very vocal about his intent to protect the Amazon but he and his successor built hydroelectric dams in the middle of the Amazon, which caused serious damage to the forest and its native population.

If Lula's new greener stance pleases the US, there is much more dissatisfaction with his close relationship with the regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Lula was also a great advocate of BRICS, the bloc made up of India, Russia, China, South Africa and Brazil which some saw as a challenge to western power.

In contrast, under Bolsonaro in 2019, for the first time in history, Brazil voted in support of the US embargo on Cuba, along with the US itself and Israel, and against 187 other countries. Facing Biden, Bolsonaro would have reminded him that he works as a shield against what he calls the "spread of communism" in Latin America.

Yet over protests from the US, the Brazilian president visited President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in 2022, just two weeks before the start of the war in Ukraine.

For Shannon, regardless of who wins the election, Brazil will be a major international player, with whom the US needs to work, without any pretensions to dominate.

"The difference between Brazil and the US is that the US is a global superpower and they know it," he says. "Brazil is a superpower and it hasn't discovered it yet."

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Brazil election: Why it matters so much to the US

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The US has been taking a keen interest in who Brazil picks as its next president. Why?

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Reuters 09/13/22: IPSEC shows Lula leading ahead of Bolsonaro in Brazil polls

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Reuters 09/13/22: IPSEC shows Lula leading ahead of Bolsonaro in Brazil polls

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https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/lula-continues-lead-over-bolsonaro-ahead-brazil-election-ipec-poll-2022-09-13/
Reporting by Carolina Pulice, Headline News Reporter, Sao Paolo and Alexandre Caverni, Sao Paolo

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Sept 12 (Reuters) - Brazil presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva continues to poll ahead of President Jair Bolsonaro, extending his lead to 15 percentage points, according to an IPEC poll published on Monday.

The survey showed Lula with 46% of voter support against 31% for Bolsonaro in the first round of the election scheduled for Oct. 2, compared to 44% and 31% respectively in the previous poll.

In the expected second-round runoff, Lula's lead grew slightly to 17 points from 16, indicating he would get elected with 53% of the vote versus Bolsonaro's 36%, the poll showed.

Meanwhile, Bolsonaro's approval rate stayed the same as the previous poll at 30%, despite the incumbent passing welfare programs and measures to tackle inflation.

His disapproval rate was up slightly to 45% from 43% the previous week, according to the poll.

Pollster IPEC, formerly known as IBOPE, interviewed 2,512 people in person between Sept. 9-11. The poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

Reporting by Carolina Pulice and Alexandre Caverni; Editing by Isabel Woodford and Christopher Cushing

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Lula continues lead over Bolsonaro ahead of Brazil election, IPEC poll shows

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Sept 12 (Reuters) - Brazil presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva continues to poll ahead of President Jair Bolsonaro, extending his lead to 15 percentage points, according to an IPEC poll published on Monday. The survey showed Lula with 46% of voter support against 31% for Bolsonaro in the first round of the election scheduled for Oct.

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Reuters 09/09/22: Bolsonaro supporter stabs a Lula supporter to death

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Reuters 09/09/22: Bolsonaro supporter stabs a Lula supporter to death

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https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/bolsonaro-fan-kills-lula-backer-brazil-election-tensions-mount-2022-09-09/
Reporting by Ricardo Brito

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Bolsonaro backer kills Lula fan as Brazil election tensions mount

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The violence happened in the state of Mato Grosso after tempers frayed during an argument over support for the two candidates.