Brazil election meddling: The stakes could not be higher
Brazil election meddling: The stakes could not be higher
Meta’s role has turned a tight race into a sovereignty crisis, with democracy, BRICS, and Washington’s influence all on the line
Cut through the corporate damage-control flimflam – ‘technical’ issues and , they say – and the Oversight Board of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, has just had to that its platforms have been caught trying to influence Brazil’s upcoming presidential elections.
In essence, they have favored the challenger and US favorite Flavio Bolsonaro, commonly referred to as ‘Flavio’ in Brazil, and harmed the incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, usually called ‘Lula’.
Meta, to be clear, hasn’t (sort of) fessed up because Mark Zuckerberg’s behemoth has suddenly discovered a conscience. Instead, it was pressure from that forced the company’s hand.
Whatever effect the American meddling will have on the election result, one thing is already certain: It has made the contest and the fierce political struggle behind it even more polarized than before. A few days before the decisive and very close final round, Lula and Flavio are trying to have ; when dealing with a badly divided country, just leave it to Washington to make everything even more vicious.
The crude attack on Brazil’s electoral integrity is anything but a surprise. Historically speaking, it’s the bad old normal rejigged for the social-media age. In Brazil, as throughout Latin America, the US has a long history of brutally intervening in domestic politics, featuring highlights such as a and by a lawfare-spying-propaganda campaign in the 2010’s.
And those interventions mattered. The 1964 coup removed a mildly leftish-etatist reformer whose real sin, under American eyes, was to take Brazilian sovereignty seriously. Plans for agrarian reform and the nationalization of key companies as well as a foreign policy permitting Brasilia to talk to – oh horror – China, Cuba, and the Soviet Union were enough to cost Joao Goulart his office. Back then, you might say, the nasty role now played by Meta was filled by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), fronting for the CIA and American commercial interests.
Brazil’s post-coup dictatorship was no short intermission either. It ended only in 1985. Washington to Brasilia: Regime change plus two decades of military rule – that’s what you get for not knowing your place in our backyard.
And the lawfare-spying-propaganda campaign of the 2010s – in part disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden – targeted and removed two Brazilian presidents. One of them, Lula, even ended up in prison, before his .
Yet, while there is a long, sad history of American attacks on Brazilian democracy and sovereignty, the stakes are especially high now, perhaps as high as they have not been since the 1964 coup. For one thing, the choice Brazil’s voters are facing is stark: Flavio Bolsonaro, the favorite not only of the US but Donald Trump personally, stands for the Bolsonaro family empire itching to strike back. His father Jair Bolsonaro is currently doing time for trying to instigate a coup. If his son comes to power, Brazil will face a great, dirty settling of scores and severe danger of sliding into authoritarianism again.
Politically, Lula and Bolsonaro Jr. could not be more different: Lula is on the left; Flavio – like his father – very solidly on the right. More importantly, the rivals represent diametrically opposed ideas of Brazil’s place in the world. Brazil is not only an important G20 member, but Lula belongs to the founding generation of and is a proponent of the rising multipolar world order in general. He demands reform at the UN, especially its Security Council, and openly challenges the predominance of the , arguing for alternatives for payments, investments, and reserves.
Lula has also castigated , for which Israel ha
