RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – At the request of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Workers Party (PT) is creating an evangelical cluster in the states to try to access this slice of the electorate loyal to Jair Bolsonaro. The information was released on Sunday, January 5th by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.
According to Folha, as soon as he left the prison in Curitiba, the leftist would have told allies that the party needed to “learn from the pastors”.
“They speak well and they say what people want to hear,” would have said ex-prisoner Lula.
Pastor Daniel Elias, of the Assembly of God in Rio and a member of the PT movement, concedes that this goal faces difficulties. “The group linked to the right-wing was here first and captured people, using the language of the believer, quoting the Bible. Although there are evangelicals who don’t like Bolsonaro, they are silent,” he told the newspaper.
According to the newspaper, the PT believes that conversations with church leaders are doomed to failure – most have aligned with Bolsonaro. But it is possible to start a dialogue with the grassroots.
On his Twitter profile, President Jair Bolsonaro’s special advisor, Arthur Weintraub, scorned the PT’s initiative. “Can you at least provide one quote from the Bible? Can you explain how the Bible ends up in the garbage?” he hissed.