Reaction in churches weakens before TSE judges Bolsonaro – 06/21/2023 – Politics

The Bolsonarist tsunami that flooded evangelical churches in 2022 became a marolinha. Public demonstrations in support of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) on the eve of the trial that could make him ineligible have been leap-sex.

The TSE (Superior Electoral Court) is starting to analyze on Thursday (22) the action that could remove the former president from elections for eight years, but the matter has not yet mobilized Aliança, a WhatsApp group that brings together some of the most industry influencers.

There are Silas Malafaia (Assembleia de Deus Vitória em Cristo), Renê Terra Nova (Ministério Internacional da Restauração), Estevam Hernandes (Renascer em Cristo), Abner Ferreira (Assembly of God Madureira), Rina (Bola de Neve), Robson Rodovalho ( Sara Nossa Terra), César Augusto (Fonte da Vida) and Victor Hugo (Ives Church), among others. And the possible ineligibility of the politician they so enthusiastically embraced last year is not a major issue, three members told the Sheet.

A walk through the social networks of this circle, previously full of content that supported the then president in search of re-election, illustrates this emptying. Almost no one has posted about Bolsonaro.

Pastor André Valadão (Igreja Batista Lagoinha) is a good example. Before the second round, he even lied that the TSE had summoned him to recant on charges against Lula (PT), his ally’s great rival. Now that Bolsonaro is about to have his political future decided by the court, he has been using his accounts to promote attacks on LGBTQIA+ pride month.

Explanations for so much silence vary. Publicly, pastors say Bolsonaro continues to have their appreciation, but there’s not much they can do at this point in the game. Behind the scenes, some admit that 2022 was exhausting for everyone involved and that, even without dying of love for Lula, they prefer not to clash head-on with the head of the federal executive for the time being.

There is also some discomfort with the disappearance of the former representative of Christian activity. A Catholic who built an evangelical coalition around himself, married by the hands of Malafaia to the believer Michelle Bolsonaro, Bolsonaro jumped from pulpit to pulpit in the last electoral race. Once defeated, he stopped going to cults. He also didn’t go to Marcha para Jesus 2023 — he was resting on the coast of São Paulo.

Whatever the justification for the timid engagement in its defense, at least so far, the prevailing feeling is that the page has been turned.

The former president “is the only one who still has the capacity to mobilize the majority of evangelicals in an election, and we prefer that he not be judged guilty”, says the apostle César Augusto. But it is necessary to recognize that “the tendency is for him to become ineligible”, and “the evangelical people already expect that”.

And that decision is to be fulfilled, he says. “For me, Justice is Justice, you have to respect a TSE judgment and that’s it.”

Being proactive at this point would be counterproductive, according to Rodovalho, bishop of Sara Nossa Terra. “We don’t have much to do. I don’t see how we can make any move that could benefit him. Maybe even harm him [com protestos]. In the Judiciary, it’s good not to mess with it, it even looks like interference.”

Deputy Marco Feliciano (PL-SP), pastor at the Assembly of God Cathedral of Revival, is one of the few evangelical cadres of expression to serve as a squire to Bolsonaro in recent weeks. On Monday (19), he shared a photo of the former president watching a participation of the parliamentarian in the Panic program (Jovem Pan).

At a certain point, Emílio Surita, the presenter, speculates about what will happen if the former president loses the action at the TSE: “It’s what you said, right? He really becomes a victim”. The interviewee replies: “Then we’ll see how the people will react to that”.

By all indications, if there are denser demonstrations in churches in favor of Bolsonaro, they will happen after a possible conviction. Feliciano recognizes this, but varnishes the possibility with religious paint. “If they make Bolsonaro ineligible, they will commit an injustice,” he tells the Sheet. “Our evangelical, orderly people will react with their prayers, crying out to heaven for true justice.”

Malafaia is the noisy exception. The pastor says he speaks little to his friend in the dock, in exchanges on WhatsApp, and relativizes the inertia that took over a segment the other day, even so committed to Bolsonarism.

“What’s the use of mobilizing against a court that ceased to be the Superior Electoral Court to be the Superior Court of Injustice and Politics? [Deltan] Dallagnol showed the unscrupulous cowardice of a court that, in defiance of the law, impeaches a guy”, he says, quoting the Baptist deputy impeached by the court, an outcome that infuriated many pastors.

Fake news even circulated on the internet that the evangelical leader would go on a hunger strike if his friend had his political rights suspended by the TSE. Malafaia denies it. “That’s a bum’s antics. The only thing I’m hungry for is fasting to get closer to God.”

He released on Tuesday (20) what he defined the report as “the most violent video, the hardest I’ve ever made against this roguery of the dictatorship of the Judiciary”.

In the piece, Malafaia claims that the meeting with ambassadors that leads to electoral action against the former president was no big deal. Bolsonaro, ironizes the pastor, only spoke of the “holy, immaculate and inerrant electronic ballot box” and “against the 11 gods of Olympus of the STF”.

If the TSE ministers blame Bolsonaro, they will turn him “into the biggest political victim in the history of Brazil” and into the “biggest electoral force in this country”, he concludes.