Brazil elections 2022: Lula da Silva promises to comply with the Constitution and the Bible

The former Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, affirmed that if he were elected in the October elections in his eventual government, he would respect both the Constitution and the Bible.

This statement addressed the evangelical voters who primarily support President Jair Bolsonaro’s reelection.

“We have to look at the Constitution, and this must be complied with; we have to look at the Bible, and it has to be complied with,” said the candidate of the Workers’ Party (PT, left) on Thursday, August 18, while speaking to a large audience in Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais, in the southeast of the country.

Religion has occupied an essential space in the campaigns of Da Silva and Bolsonaro since last Tuesday when the race for the Planalto Palace officially began.

Bolsonaro is “more for a Pharisee than a Christian; he doesn’t respect anyone,” the 76-year-old former president, convicted for a massive corruption scandal involving Petrobras, pointed out, his voice hoarse at Praça da Estação, where his candidate for vice president, center-right politician Geraldo Alckmin, former governor of the state of São Paulo, was standing.

“We are facing an unbalanced, unstructured person; we are facing a person who believes in stimulating hatred, that is the opposite of what we want,” added Lula da Silva in a new lunge against Bolsonaro.

A recent Datafolha poll indicated that Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party (PL, right) has 49% of voting intentions among voters linked to neo-pentecostal churches, and Lula has 32%.

On the other hand, the ex-unionist Da Silva has 52% of support among Catholic voters, compared to 27% for the ex-military Bolsonaro.

The Datafolha survey “indicates that there is a strong evangelical vote in favor of Bolsonaro because the vote of this segment, which has a growing weight in the population, has become quite politicized,” said political scientist Ana Carolina Evangelista, director of the Institute of Religion Studies.

Ana Carolina Evangelista added that evangelical citizens “have a more active participation in politics than Catholics,” making their impact important in the campaign even though Catholics continue to be the majority in Brazil.

Members of Da Silva’s campaign let it be known that their candidate will seek to discount Bolsonaro’s advantage among Evangelicals, who represent 30% of the 156 million voters.

To this end, Da Silva, a Catholic, will insist that they do not intend to close Neo-Pentecostal churches as Bolsonaro’s pastors have assured in their services, according to a report published this week by CBN radio of the Globo group.

At the same time, the PT candidate continues with his discourse toward the female electorate, which according to several polls, is mainly inclined towards the leftist party.

“We do not want women to continue to be treated as if they were a bed object; we want women to be the subject of history, to be able to do what they want,” said the politician in Belo Horizonte.

Meanwhile, Lula da Silva’s wife, sociologist Rosángela Silva, began to hold meetings with women defending a progressive discourse and religious tolerance as a counterpart of Bolsonaro’s wife.

Bolsonaro, who is Catholic, established close ties with evangelical churches and has the support of the mighty “Bible Bench”, formed by evangelical pastors.

In this context, the first lady, Michelle Bolsonaro, an evangelical, has made speeches in recent events in which she assumed a religious position.

With information from ANSA