Disaster response offers political advantage to Lula – 02/22/2023 – Bruno Boghossian

In 50 days, Lula flew three times to visit areas hit by calamities. The PT member traveled to Araraquara (SP) to assess the damage caused by the rain, went to Roraima to announce health actions for the Yanomami and flew over regions affected by storms on the coast of São Paulo.

Disasters and humanitarian crises prompt voters to make an instant assessment of their rulers. Political science has already identified effects on the popularity of politicians when they react or fail to react to high-profile cases.

John Mueller showed in the 1970s that dramatic events with an international dimension and direct involvement of the president could give the president a temporary approval boost of five to seven percentage points.

In the following decades, other nuances of this relationship were analyzed. Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels pointed out that, in some cases, citizens blindly blame rulers in case of tragedy. Andrew Cole and other authors, however, concluded that the voter punishes those in office, but relief actions soften this impact.

Episodes in this category are political events because they provide the ruler with elements to build his image. The dimension and duration of its effects depend on other factors, such as the proximity of elections, the occupation of the news and the feeling of well-being of the population after the tragedy.

In December 2021, Jair Bolsonaro bet on political rivalry with the government of Bahia and refused to interrupt his vacation to visit places hit by the rain in the south of the state. In the following election, however, he did not have a significant loss of votes in the municipalities of the region compared to 2018.

Lula invests in a line of recovering the liturgy of office and benefits from a contrast with Bolsonaro. The PT suspended the holiday break to go to São Paulo, hastened the announcement of relief measures and made the display of a partnership with a governor who is his opponent.

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