Brazilians, saturated by an aggressive and long electoral campaign

First modification: 26/10/2022 – 14:44

The largest country in Latin America is four days away from deciding on Sunday, October 30, whether to re-elect the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro or if his nemesis, former leftist president Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva, who is the favorite in the polls, reaches the polls for the third time. can.

And in a tight dispute over the 4% of voters who say they will vote null or blank and the undecided (1%), the appearances of the candidates flood the media and social networks, and dominate the conversations of Brazilians.

“I am getting sick because there is a lot of disagreement,” Marcelo Brandão Viana, a Bolsonaro voter, told AFP, lamenting a campaign “overloaded” with fake news and attacks between the competing factions.

“I’m living that 24 hours a day and it’s horrible,” adds this 51-year-old bank clerk, unable to stop himself from checking his WhatsApp groups during his break time, outside a shopping center in Brasilia.

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Sitting in a chair on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach, José Guilherme Araújo cannot escape the electoral noise either.

“I feel exhausted, I’m fed up,” this 65-year-old bearded lawyer, white hair and green swimsuit with the Brazilian flag, who will vote null, tells AFP.

“There is only talk of election on the main television channels, it is horrible. I try to watch closed channels (cable) to escape from the matter,” he adds.

avoid problems

The final duel between Bolsonaro and ‘Lula’ was almost assured since last year, when the former president regained his political rights after seeing his convictions for corruption annulled.

Many Brazilians have the impression that the campaign started then.

In Sao Paulo, Alexia Ebert silenced her condominium WhatsApp group, which has become a continuous thread of political information and disinformation. “She couldn’t take it anymore,” says the 22-year-old student.

Some, like Aline Tescer, complain that the proposals for the next four years were conspicuous by their absence. “I see myself the same as in the last election: they are always the same things, the same accusations and I feel that I have no option to vote,” says the 35-year-old woman in Sao Paulo.

Luciene Soares says she is “disappointed” by the “disrespect” instigated by the far-right president.

“I prefer not to say who I vote for because one is afraid of people’s reactions. I don’t talk about politics because it creates problems,” says this 48-year-old shopkeeper in Brasilia, dressed in a green and yellow blouse of the Brazilian flag, a national symbol. that “unhappily” the Bolsonaristas appropriated.

“Among our friends and family, we say, ‘God! I hope it’s over now.'”

“Anesthesia”

The exhaustion does not appear in the polls that are published weekly, but experts note it on the street and on the Internet, in a country with 171.5 million users of social networks in 2022 (80% of the population, +14% compared to 2021), according to the digital study of the agencies We Are Social and Hootsuite.

The high level of consolidation of the vote and the bombardment of information “end up anesthetizing the electorate” and “tiring it,” says Amaro Grassi, a sociologist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s Department of Public Policy Analysis.

“The permanent presence of campaign content did not begin in this election but today it is very accentuated,” he adds.

“Now they talk about politics even on gossip sites,” says Iamylle Kauane, from São Paulo, visiting Rio.

This 21-year-old social worker is waiting for the end of the elections “to return to normality”.

According to Grassi, “the majority of the population will want to return to their lives and turn the page”, but “a climate of unavoidable political exasperation will remain”.

Although there are those who remain indefatigable.

“I don’t feel tired,” says Leandro Albino Oliveira, 36, wearing a white shirt and wearing one of the hats he sells on the beach in Rio. “We are not going to rest until our president is re-elected.”