How street protests and 'Lula's Army' WhatsApp channel drove Lula's comeback in Brazil's election
Lula da Silva's runoff victory in Brazil's presidential election was fuelled by student street protests and a WhatsApp channel called "Lula's Army" that grew from 60,000 followers on its first day to more than 10 million by election Sunday.
How street protests and 'Lula's Army' WhatsApp channel drove Lula's comeback in Brazil's election
Lula da Silva's comeback in Brazil's election did not begin on election night. It began, analysts and the president himself agree, on the streets and on a phone screen: with student demonstrations that spread across the country and with a WhatsApp channel called "Lula's Army" that reached more than 10 million followers by election Sunday.
The protests that changed the race
After Lula finished second in the first round - a result he reportedly told allies he could not understand, given a government he considered the best of his three terms - the night brought the first response. Students from the Fluminense Federal University marched through Niterói, a city of 480,000 across Guanabara Bay from Rio de Janeiro. Two days later, another student protest took over downtown Rio, and in the days that followed similar demonstrations spread across the country.
The result was historic: for the first time in Brazil's democratic history, a second-placed candidate overturned a first-round defeat in the runoff. The organic demonstrations, analysts and Lula agree, gave new life to his campaign and played a decisive role. In his victory speech on Sunday night, Lula thanked the young people of Brazil for taking to the streets to defend democracy.
'Lula's Army' and the digital push
Two days after the first round, congressman André Janones created the WhatsApp channel "Lula's Army", sending audio messages, videos and daily instructions for pro-Lula content, often beginning with shouts of "Guys, urgent!". The channel had 60,000 followers by the end of its first day and more than 10 million by election Sunday, by which point Lula's digital reach had overtaken his rival's.
The effort came at a cost. Janones' push included a 24-hour YouTube live stream on the eve of the vote and led to him being admitted to hospital last week - the only day the channel went silent. Lula himself, who turns 81 on Tuesday and does not own a mobile phone, began recording selfie videos.
In his victory speech, Lula called Janones "our general", who had the role of "raising the morale of our troops every day".
On Sunday night, Lula said he had been given a phone and would now speak to the Brazilian people many times a day, directly.
Government machinery and the numbers
Political scientist Fábio Vasconcellos, a researcher with the Representation and Democratic Legitimacy group at the Federal University of Paraná, said the comeback could be explained by a combination of the streets, social media and the machinery of government - including a package of benefits at the limits of electoral law. Among these was increasing and bringing forward payments from the main cash-transfer programme for poor families.
The runoff votes tell the scale of the shift. Bolsonaro won 56.1m votes in the first round and received 3.7 million more in the runoff; Lula went from 53.9m to 64.2m. That more than 10m-vote increase came from persuading voters to turn out after historically high first-round abstention, and from convincing voters of other candidates, including Bolsonaro himself.
What analysts say it means
Political scientist Camila Rocha said the comeback represented "a broad rejection of the Bolsonarista project for Brazil". Rocha, who has interviewed undecided voters since May, said the fear workers had of losing rights, and of a possible concentration of power, was very clear. Some undecided voters she interviewed called Bolsonaro a playboy who sided with big business and feared a dictatorship if he won; Bolsonaro had said he would use the new, even more conservative congress to change the constitution and "re-democratise" Brazil.
Political scientist Helcimara de Souza Telles put it bluntly: "If it were another candidate, Bolsonaro would already have won in the first round". Campaign manager Marco Aurélio de Carvalho credited the president: "President Lula. We have a great statesman on our team. We have a star player. That's what absolutely made the difference".
Lula has said this was his last election, which raises the question of what comes next for Brazil's left. Rocha noted there is no one in his party with the same leadership, with his dominance in polling on leadership very strong. Yet Vasconcellos believes the campaign - "from what we saw on the streets, offered the Brazilian left an opportunity for renewal", and a chance to find better ways to connect with young people and urban voters who feel their concerns are not being heard.
