The president, who is Catholic, has not yet managed to gain traction with evangelicals; survey considers public speeches
At an event at Palácio do Planalto about the concession of a highway last Wednesday (22 January 2025), the president (PT) and the governor of Minas Gerais, (Novo). For that, . According to him, “only Jesus Christ” would do what he did for states that did not pay debts.
The PT member’s religious citations have gradually increased over the first 2 years of this 3rd term, reaching at least 462 in the period.
The data comes from a survey of the Poder360. The report sought in Lula’s public speeches of 2023 and 2024 the words “faith”, “Jesus”, “Cristo”, “Deus” e “Christian”. He separated the constructions used and grouped similar phrases or phrases with the same meaning, in addition to excluding quotes whose words had no religious meaning.
On May 1, 2024, the government launched the (idea of former minister ) to try to engage evangelicals. There were 36 advertising videos. At a cost of at least R$28.5 million, according to the government.
The rise in Lula’s religious speeches was noticeable. From May to June, the president’s religious citations doubled: from 29 to 58.
That month, the PT member had a “conservative” in discourses with religion and family. He had taken a break from mentions of this type as soon as strong floods hit Rio Grande do Sul at the end of April.
The strategy was an attempt to get closer to the evangelical electorate who, in large part, aligned themselves with the former president (PL) in recent years.
On June 21, for example, Lula declared himself a Christian and said that the family is the “elementary basis for building a democratic society” when commenting on Congress’ decision to allow prisoners to temporarily go out to visit family. The president vetoed a project on the topic, but .
While traveling to Italy for the G7 summit, Lula himself on June 14, and invited the pontiff to participate in a joint campaign to “make the world more human”.
Watch the moment of Lula’s meeting with Pope Francis (1min5s):
In September last year it was the PT’s turn to try to get closer to the Christian public. In partnership with the Perseu Abramo Foundation, the acronym and who consider themselves evangelicals.
The recordings were part of the initiative to support 32 thousand PT candidates, in order to improve the relationship between the party and the evangelical community.
Each video was about 5 minutes long. In their reports, PT members spoke about their experiences as evangelicals and members of the government. They also advised the religious community to open dialogue with the left wing.
Participating in the videos:
- Benedita da Silva (PT-RJ)federal deputy. Watch (4min37s) and (5min03s);
- Jorge MessiasAttorney General of the Union. Watch (7min36s) and (3min42s);
- Oliver Goianopastor of the Lagoa Baptist Church (RJ). Watch (4min02s), (3min42s) and (1min47s);
- Alexandre BrasilSecretary of Higher Education at the MEC (Ministry of Education). (5min31s);
- Nilza Valeriajournalist. Watch (5min03s) and (3min48s);
- Bernadette Adriana Alves de LimaAdrianinha, congress advisor. (4min25s);
- By Sergio DusilBaptist pastor. Watch (3min54s) and (2min22s).
LULA AND EVANGELICALS
Lula quoted “Deus” often when remembering their health problems, such as . “Thank you to the people who prayed, to the people who kept asking God for me to heal”, on December 15, upon being discharged from Hospital Sírio-Libanês, in São Paulo.
Before, I had already said that the presidential plane, which , would not crash. The PT member’s delegation spent around 5 hours circling Mexico City to burn off fuel and be able to land safely after a technical problem with one of the turbines.
Em live with the candidate for mayor of São Paulo (Psol) on Instagram on October 3, 2024,: “I thought about my life, because I spent four and a half hours on the plane waiting for a miracle from God so that I wouldn’t crash. I thought a lot about my life, I thought about you [Boulos]I thought about the people of São Paulo, I thought about the humble people of this country that we try to help”.
Despite the volume of religious quotes, the PT member uses them mainly in greetings, farewells or as an oratory resource. The most used in the first 2 years of government were variations of “if it is God’s will” e “God willing”. There were 67 mentions. Already “God blesses” e “thank God” they were tied for 2nd place, both with 55 mentions.
At the same time that he has a clear strategy of trying to get closer to religious people, the data indicates that the president has not been successful. In December 2024, according to the PowerDatathe disapproval rate of the Lula government among evangelicals the biggest of this PT member’s 3rd term.
Information in this report was previously published by Driveexclusively. The newsletter is produced for subscribers by the team of journalists at Poder360. Find out more about Drive and find out how to receive all the main information about power and politics in advance.
