President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party (PT) held a livestream on Sunday (13) from the Palácio da Alvorada, the presidential residence in Brasília, to promote his own reelection bid. The broadcast also featured the party's national president, Edinho Silva, and its national communications secretary, Éden Valadares, according to G1.
The 2022 ban
The setting has an electoral history. In September 2022, Brazil's top electoral court, the TSE, barred then president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) from using the same palace for livestreams promoting candidacies. According to G1, Bolsonaro had said in a broadcast from the palace library that he would deliver his own "horário eleitoral gratuito", the free campaign airtime parties receive on Brazilian radio and television, and asked viewers to vote for allies in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and São Paulo, naming them and their ballot numbers. Three days later the court banned such broadcasts from the palace, and a TSE justice ordered the earlier video taken down.
Lula's campaign press office said in a statement that the broadcast "used strictly campaign equipment" and that "the Palácio da Alvorada is the official residence of the government and President Lula's private space". It added that the campaign follows all TSE rules.
What Lula said
During the livestream, Lula attacked his main rival in this year's presidential race, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), son of Jair Bolsonaro.
"There is a candidate who was born in the middle of the militia, takes part in the militia and is mixed up in every scam since the robbery of Social Security. What, is Lula's son involved? It is true, if my son is involved, he will pay a very high price. But the one who shares an office with Careca is Flávio Bolsonaro, not my son," he said.
According to Folha de S.Paulo, Lula asked supporters to spread the "truth" in the final stretch of the first round to defeat "denialists": "We need to turn these 20 days of campaign into the absolute truth to defeat the absolute lie." The newspaper also reported that the president spoke little about the crisis at the Supreme Federal Court (STF) and the Master bank investigation, and that he highlighted inflation, on track for the lowest reading on the eve of an election since the start of the Real Plan.
Since July 14, under the campaign restriction period known as defeso, the government says it has followed the limits Brazilian law imposes on public officials. Broadcasts of the president's events stopped airing on the public broadcaster EBC and moved to Lula's own social media accounts, as happened on Sunday. According to G1, he has preferred to hold campaign meetings at the Alvorada rather than at the campaign headquarters in Lago Sul, which he visits mostly for recordings.
The livestream closed the "Dia 13 com Lula", a nationwide day of PT mobilization with sticker drives, leafleting, walks and rallies. The first round of the presidential election takes place in October. In 2022, the TSE ruling came three days after the broadcast that prompted it; as of Sunday night, no electoral challenge to Lula's livestream had been reported at the court.