Presidential election in Brazil: How Bolsonaro’s disinformation works

Outgoing Brazilian President Bolsonaro has spent years building the narrative of a rigged election. False information is also spreading in Germany – among other things, the protests are clearly overestimated.

In Brazil, people have been protesting for weeks, especially in front of military facilities, to protest the allegedly stolen election. The supporters of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro do not want to accept the narrow defeat of their favorite in the election against his competitor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The hashtag “Brazilwasstolen” (in German: Brazil was robbed) is trending again and again on social networks. And even in Germany, a few people took to the streets for “transparent and verifiable elections in Brazil.”

There is no serious evidence of possible electoral fraud. Christoph Harig, a research associate at the Institute for International Relations at the TU Braunschweig, also points to this. “Years ago, President Bolsonaro began to knit a narrative that a possible election defeat could only be explained by fraud.” Similar to former US President Donald Trump. A narrative that not only catches on in Brazil.

The conspiracy stories of Bolsonaro and his allies are also being spread in Germany. Because here, too, the Brazilian has some supporters – including in the “lateral thinker” movement. The lawyer Markus Haintz, who is well-known in the scene, even conducted an hour-long interview with Bolsonaro last year – together with Vicky Richter, who, like Haintz, was once a member of the “Die Basis” party. Also AfD member of parliament Beatrix von Storch maintains close contact with Bolsonaro and visited him in July 2021, among other places.

“There have been much larger protests”

In addition to the unsubstantiated allegation of election manipulation, various groups on social networks are giving the impression that massive protests would paralyze Brazil. AfD politician von Storch wrote on Twitter about the protests: “There has probably never been anything like this in recent history” and accused the Western media of “fake news through concealment”.

Harig from the TU Braunschweig vehemently disagrees. “There are still isolated road blockades in the country, which of course leads to local restrictions.” The majority of the protests are now mostly taking place in the immediate vicinity of military barracks. “There have been much larger protests, including in the recent past,” says Harig. During the mass protests after socio-economic improvements in 2013, significantly more people, including those from broad sections of the population, took to the streets.

Also ARDCorrespondent Anne Herrberg says that shortly after the election the number of protesters fell again rapidly. The effects of the protests on public life in the country are very manageable – also because the police took action against the numerous road blockades. In addition, Bolsonaro had asked his supporters to end the roadblocks. Contrary to what AfD politician von Storch claims, the daily News several times about the protests.

Videos of what appear to be mass demonstrations after the election have been circulating on social media, but one of the most widespread is actually an election rally on Brazil’s National Day in September, as reported by the AFP news agency.

“Clearly anti-democratic protests”

What’s unusual about the current protests is the crude mix of theories being put forward by the demonstrators, says Cecilia Tornaghi, senior policy director at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas (AS/COA). Videos even circulated of protesters sending light signals into the sky to ask extraterrestrials for help. Bolsonaro’s supporters also deny any allegations of wrongdoing by their leader and describe all allegations as coming from “the left” – which in their worldview includes anyone who is not radicalized.

“These are clearly anti-democratic protests,” says Brazil expert Harig. “There are explicit calls for a ‘military intervention’ to prevent the inauguration of a democratically elected president. That the armed forces call this a ‘legitimate protest’ is absurd.”

According to Harig, former and sometimes active military personnel make up a large proportion of the current protests. “Other protesters openly sympathize with the military dictatorship.” What the protesters have in common is the actual firm belief that Lula could only have won the election by cheating. The doubts about the electoral system sown by Bolsonaro and his allies over the years have apparently had an effect.

Also ARDCorrespondent Herrberg sees an increasing radicalization among the protesters. At the beginning of November, a video in which numerous Bolsonaro supporters stretched their right arms in front of a barracks caused a sensation.

No evidence of rigged ballot boxes

One of the main allegations by Bolsonaro supporters is that the electronic ballot boxes are said to have been tampered with. There is no evidence of this either, says Harig: “The voting machines have been checked according to the same standards for years. Ironically, numerous Bolsonaro supporters were elected to parliament with exactly those electronic voting machines whose integrity they now doubt.”

“The source code of the ballot boxes is open, observers from the parties, civil society and this time also the military can and were allowed to check the ballot boxes,” says AS/COA’s Tornaghi. “This year, given the doubts expressed, the armed forces also requested a prior check of the ballot boxes, which was carried out on a random basis and did not reveal any problems.”

With the complaint against the result of the presidential election, Bolsonaro’s party PL failed at the end of November due to a lack of evidence. In addition, the head of the Brazilian electoral court imposed a fine of 23 million reais (about 4.1 million euros) on the applicants. They would have maliciously and irresponsibly started a lawsuit and brought it to justice.

Military coup ‘highly unlikely’

Harig from the Technical University of Braunschweig believes that it is currently “highly unlikely” that the Brazilian military will prevent the transfer of office at the beginning of January and seize power itself. “The military has in recent years placed itself in a privileged political position that a coup would endanger it in the long term. In other words, a Lula government poses no threat to the military’s core interests.”

However, the military could want to use the threatening scenario of a possible coup to put pressure on Lula and assert their own interests – for example, that the military dictatorship is still not legally processed. In addition, right-wing parties could use the latent instability in the country to force concessions from the Lula government, says Harig. It is also possible that Bolsonaro and his party are perpetuating the narrative of electoral fraud in order to retain voters.

Bolsonaro himself has kept a low profile since his election defeat – and is thus at least indirectly fueling speculation about a possible coup. “Why Bolsonaro is silent is the million-dollar question,” says Tornaghi. She suspects that he could either be shocked by the defeat himself or that he fears legal consequences if he continues to negate the election result.