A judge of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) of Brazil ordered Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to stop broadcasting a campaign advertisement associating Jair Bolsonaro with cannibalismthree weeks before the second round of the presidential elections.
In his sentence published on Saturday night, Judge Paulo de Tarso Sanseverino considered that this spot broadcast by the former president Lula da Silva’s campaign team included an excerpt from a video "taken out of context".
In that 2016 video, the current Brazilian president, who was a deputy at the time, stated in an interview with The New York Times that he would be able to eat human flesh.
There, Bolsonaro described what he presented as a ritual of the Yanomami indigenous community, in the state of Roraima (north). "It is cooked for two or three days and they eat it with banana. I wanted to see the Indian being cooked. There they tell me: ‘if he sees it, he has to eat it’. I eat it!"Bolsonaro added in this video that has gone viral on social networks in Brazil.
"After all the absurdities that Brazil has already heard from Bolsonaro, another even more terrifying one emerges: he reveals that I would eat human flesh; Brazil can’t stand Bolsonaro anymore"says a voiceover in the announcement broadcast by Lula’s campaign.
"In the way these words were taken from the interview, the original meaning of the message was changed, suggesting that the candidate could admit the possibility of consuming human flesh in any circumstance"stressed the TSE judge.
A leader of the Yanomami community, Junior Hekurari, has categorically denied the existence of cannibalistic rituals in his culture.
On Saturday morning, during a press conference after a meeting in Campinas, near São Paulo (southeast), Lula had disproved the idea that these references to cannibalism they had been a cheap shot against his opponent.
"We did not invent anything, it is not Lula’s campaign that says it, it is he who says it to an American journalist. It is not malice on our part, we are just giving people information about our adversary"replied the former president (2003-2010).
The tension in the campaign for the second round, which will be on October 30, has risen several steps in recent days.
On Friday, Bolsonaro, who had maintained a moderate tone in the last stretch of the campaign, returned to his more aggressive style, calling Lula "drunk"while accusing him of wanting "bring in a gang of incompetents to run Brazil".
The latest survey by the Datafolha Institute, published on Friday, gives Lula the winner with 53% of the votes, compared to 47% for Bolsonaro.
