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Brazil’s Bolsonaro taps wife to woo Evangelicals, women

Photo: MAURO PIMENTEL / AFP

AFP | by Ramon SAHMKOW

Once a discreetly smiling presence at Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s side, First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro is increasingly wooing Evangelical Christian and women voters to reelect the husband she calls “one of God’s chosen ones.”

Trailing in the polls to leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the far-right incumbent has turned to his telegenic, fervently Christian wife to help him with those two key demographic groups ahead of October 2 elections.

A mainly behind-the-scenes presence for most of Bolsonaro’s term, the first lady is now playing a starring role in his campaign — to the point of giving what he himself called the keynote speech when he launched his reelection bid a month ago.

“She’s the most important person here,” Bolsonaro, 67, gushed that day.

He then handed the mic over to his beaming 40-year-old wife, who warned ominously against returning “our enemies” to power and led the crowd in the Lord’s prayer.

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Lula, Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010, is leading Bolsonaro 45 percent to 33 percent, according to a poll released Thursday by the Datafolha institute.

Among women, the gap was even bigger: 46 percent to 29 percent.

Bolsonaro has long struggled with women voters.

In his 2018 campaign, the former army captain was the target of a women-led movement called #EleNao — “not him” — launched by critics who accuse him of misogyny.

He has revived those accusations this time around with controversial campaign-trail behavior such as bragging about his supposed sexual prowess and lashing out at a woman journalist who asked him a tough question during the first presidential debate.

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“You must have a crush on me or something,” he told her sarcastically.

Enter the first lady.

“Her role is to make (Bolsonaro) more attractive to women voters,” says Sergio Praca, a political analyst at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.

Winning strategy?

Both Bolsonaro and former president Lula are keenly courting women (53 percent of the electorate) and Evangelicals (an estimated 31 percent of Brazil’s 213 million people).

Known for his aggressive style and use of profanities, Bolsonaro has sometimes rubbed both groups the wrong way.

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Political analysts say women voters also resent his lack of policies to help them through the country’s post-Covid-19 economic malaise, the impact of which has fallen disproportionately on their shoulders.

Michelle, Bolsonaro’s third wife, sends the message the president is a “conservative family man” and “trustworthy” candidate, says Carolina Botelho, a political communication specialist at Rio de Janeiro State University.

The elegant first lady’s increasingly active role has turned heads — including among the electoral authorities, who recently blocked a Bolsonaro campaign ad from television, ruling she had exceeded the time allotted to candidates’ allies.

But it is unclear if the strategy is paying off: Bolsonaro’s poll numbers among women have remained essentially flat.

Michelle “may have reinforced (Bolsonaro’s) standing among women who were already with him, but she hasn’t drawn in those who were against him,” says Botelho.

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“She speaks well to a fanatic, radicalized audience, but not to the rest of the population.”

Religion and politics

The first lady appears to have greater pull with conservative Christians, given her history of volunteering on church-affiliated charity projects and her close ties with powerful Evangelical pastors and politicians.

“Her main strength is among the Evangelical electorate,” says Adriano Laureno, a political analyst at consulting firm Prospectiva.

Her speaking style “closely resembles a pastor’s,” with constant references to God and a struggle between good and evil, he adds.

In this case, the strategy may be working: Bolsonaro has extended his lead over Lula among Evangelicals, which stands at 49 percent to 32 percent in the latest Datafolha poll.

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Polls also show a majority of voters in Brazil believe religion should play a role in politics.

The first lady does just that in her public appearances, regularly repeating her husband’s slogan: “Brazil above all, and God above everyone.”

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International

Trump appoints Stallone, Voight, and Gibson as special ambassadors to Hollywood

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“They will help me as special envoys to make Hollywood, which has lost many overseas businesses in the last four years, COME BACK BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER,” he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.

The Republican lamented all the “problems” he claims Hollywood faces and created this role with the aim of improving the situation from a business perspective.

“These three talented men will be my eyes and ears. I will do whatever they suggest,” he said.

Stallone had previously described Trump as the second George Washington, the first U.S. president (1789–1797) and one of the nation’s founding fathers, during a dinner after his victory in the November presidential elections, where he served as the master of ceremonies.

Meanwhile, Gibson attacked Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing her of having “the IQ of a fence.”

The Republican leader will be sworn in as president on January 20 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, succeeding Democrat Joe Biden.

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Latin American and Caribbean diplomats voice concern over U.S. mass deportation plan

Diplomatic chiefs from ten Latin American and Caribbean countries expressed their “serious concern” over the announcement of a mass deportation of migrants, a measure they consider incompatible with human rights, according to a joint statement released this Friday.

The statement, which does not attribute the measure to any specific country, refers to the announcement made by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to carry out the largest foreign deportation operation in the history of the nation once he takes office next Monday. “The announcements of mass deportations are a serious cause for concern, especially due to their incompatibility with the fundamental principles of human rights and their failure to effectively address the structural causes of migration,” the statement said, released by Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE).

The signing countries—Brazil, Belize, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela (almost all migrant-sending nations)—also committed to “defend the human rights of all migrants.”

This includes “rejecting the criminalization of migrants at all stages of the migration cycle” and “protecting them as a priority from transnational organized crime that profits from migration,” the document adds.

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International

Noboa once again entrusts the Vice President of Ecuador to the vice president he appointed by decree

The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, returned this Thursday to delegate – for the second time – the Presidency to the Secretary of Public Administration and Cabinet of the Presidency Cynthia Gellibert, whom he himself appointed by decree vice president in charge, in the face of the open confrontation he maintains with the vice president, Verónica Abad.

As he did last week, Noboa again issued a decree in which he announces that he is absent from the Presidency from Thursday to Sunday, to make an electoral campaign in search of his re-election in the elections of February 9, and during that period of time it will be Gellibert who will be in charge of the head of the State.

This action of the president of Ecuador is a matter of evaluation by the ordinary and constitutional justice at the request of the vice president, Verónica Abad, who claims to assume the presidential functions during the full period of the electoral campaign, in which according to the Constitution the head of state must ask for leave for being a candidate for re-election.

In his decree, Noboa argues that, although the Constitution determines that the Vice Presidency must assume the head of State in the event of the absence of the president, this “is not limited to the elected vice-president, but to the person who to date is exercising the functions of the Vice Presidency.”

Before appointing Gellibert as vice president in charge by decree, Noboa sent Abad to the Ecuadorian Embassy in Turkey, after a judge annulled the five-month suspension that the same Government had imposed on him. Until now, the vice president remains in Ecuador to claim to be the one who temporarily assumes the Presidency.

The new period of Gellibert with presidential powers began at 18:00 local time (23:00 GMT) this Thursday and is scheduled to end at 22:00 (03:00 GMT) next Sunday, time at which the debate between presidential candidates is expected to end where Noboa is summoned to participate.

After the debate, Noboa plans to travel to Washington to attend Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, according to the Ecuadorian Presidency.

After the first assignment of the Presidency to Gellibert, Abad denounced a “coup d’état” and urged the Organization of American States (OAS) to apply the Democratic Charter, considering that the constitutional order had been broken because it had not received the presidential powers, as contemplated in the Ecuadorian Constitution.

In addition, he filed a protection action with which he seeks that the Justice annul the decrees in which Noboa appointed Gellibert as vice president in charge and delegated the Presidency to him. A court admitted the appeal on Friday, but did not accept some precautionary measures that Abad also asked for to suspend those effects immediately.

Controversies like this will be part of the analysis and evaluation of the electoral observation mission (EOM) of the European Union (EU) for the Ecuadorian elections, as anticipated on Wednesday by its leader, Spanish MEP Gabriel Mato.

The confrontation between Noboa and Abad began in the electoral campaign for the second round of elections for the extraordinary elections of 2023, and was reflected when he assumed the charges, when in one of his first decisions, the president sent the vice president to Israel as ambassador, with the mission of seeking peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Abad has denounced Noboa for alleged political gender violence and has accused her of leading a harassment against her to force her to resign and thus avoid having to delegate the Presidency to her during the electoral campaign period, which runs from January 5 to February 6.

The titular vice president has also accused the Government of being behind the corruption investigation in the offices of the Vice Presidency that involves her son in a case where the Prosecutor’s Office also sought to indict Abad, but the National Assembly (Parliament) voted mostly against lifting the jurisdiction, although the ruling party voted in favor.

The general elections in Ecuador are called for Sunday, February 9 and, according to the polls published so far, Noboa and the candidate of the correismo Luisa González appear as prominent favorites to move on to the second round.

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