Visits to temples, photos with priests, letters to the faithful and a shower of disinformation: Jair Bolsonaro and Lula da Silva are fighting in all ways to win the decisive Christian electorate before Sunday’s ballot in Brazil.

Efforts to win that vote, in what the press called a “religious war,” continued to the last stretch of the campaign.

In Brazil, a country where 215 million people live, mostly Catholics, but with a growing influence of the Evangelical Churches – one third of the electorate -, 59% consider religion an important factor when deciding the vote, according to consulting firm Datafolha.

“Bringing the debate into the field of religion and morals makes it easier (for candidates) to work to increase opponent rejection, with issues that appeal to the emotional,” said Leandro Consentino, political scientist at the Insper AFP Institute.

Bolsonaro and the broad support of the evangelicals

Bolsonaro, who is second in the polls albeit by a narrow margin, has it broad support from evangelicalsa resource he exploited during his campaign.

“The left, communism, is not committed to life, it does not respect us,” criticized the far-right politician, alluding to Lula, as he recently went to the altar of a packed evangelical church in San Paolo.

“I know who you are they will give us the victory on the next day 30“, he harangued.

The current president, a 67-year-old Catholic later baptized in the Jordan River by a famous evangelical pastor, retains a 65% of voting intentions among evangelicals against Lula’s 31%support that he sustained with the defense of the traditional family and the Bible or the appointment of a “terribly evangelical” judge for the Tribunal.

In his election crusade, he also had his wife Michelle, a devout and quiet evangelical, who traveled the country to support religious support, defining the contest as a battle between “good and evil” and alluding to Lula as the ” Devil “.

He also has the support of influential conservative pastors like Silas Malafaia, who before his 10 million followers on social networks launches attacks on Lula, calling him from “liar” to “alcoholic”.

Bolsonaro has not forgotten the Catholics, among whom Lula leads the voting intentions (57% for the left, against 37% for the far right), although they are less cohesive when it comes to payingaccording to experts.

In four days he went to the state of Pará (north) and São Paulo to participate in the Cirio de Nazaré procession and the cult of Nossa Senhora da Aparecida, patron saint of Brazil, two of the largest Catholic festivals.

Lula, involved in a fight to fight fake news

In the final stretch of the campaign, leftist Lula, who turned 77 on Thursday, made an effort to get closer to evangelicals and deny false information promoted by the opposition, such as planning the closure of churches.

“The family is a sacred thing for me”, assured Lula between sobs, in a recent act with the evangelicals, to whom she delivered a letter of commitments to reassure them that she will guarantee freedom of worship and that she opposes abortion. allowed only with exceptions in Brazil.

He also met more progressive pastors and attended a ceremony with one of them in São Paulo. With her eyes closed, her hands folded in front of his body, and her gaze on the ground, she heard a black shepherd praise him for do not use “religious tricks to deceive people”.

The focus of the debate on the religious agenda could mean an advantage for Bolsonaro in the ballot, said Adriano Laureno, an analyst at the consulting firm Prospectiva.

“He led the campaign for his camp. If it was about economics, Lula would probably be in a more comfortable situation,” explained Laureno.

The political use of religion ended up exasperating the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, which he condemned, without naming names, the “exploitation of faith as a means of collecting votes “.

According to the local press, Catholic priests have been reprimanded by supporters of the president in churches for talking about issues related to the left.

Source: AFP