Brasilia (AFP) – The Brazilian justice system ordered the removal of false publications about the country's patron saint from social networks, a controversy that dominates the final stretch of the presidential election campaign that Donald Trump said he followed "very closely."

First modification: 01/10/2026 - 19:36Last modification: 02/10/2026 - 04:09

Leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is seeking a fourth term, will face right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), on Sunday.

The polls give Lula an advantage in the first round and foresee a runoff on October 25, with a technical tie.

There was an expectation that both candidates would face each other in a first face-to-face meeting this Thursday in a debate with other candidates on TV Globo.

But Lula, 80, declined to attend this week and Flávio, 45, canceled his participation two hours before the debate, alleging "censorship."

"I have just made the decision not to go to the Globo debate due to the censorship imposed on the event by the Superior Electoral Court," wrote Flávio Bolsonaro on the social network X.

The electoral court had previously ruled that TV Globo could not leave, as planned, an empty chair on the set to represent Lula's absence nor could the participants use their time to question an absent Lula.

"Fake news"

The last hours of the campaign are carried out by the Virgin Nossa Senhora Aparecida, venerated in one of the countries with the most Christians in the world.

The controversy broke out last week, when posts went viral on social media claiming that, if he came to power, Flávio Bolsonaro would withdraw the title of patron saint of Brazil.

These versions were based on a bill presented in 2007 by a conservative deputy, with no direct link to the candidate, which sought to limit patronage to Catholics and which was shelved the following year.

The right-winger denied the accusations and blamed the government for spreading "fake news."

The removal of the publications had been ordered on Friday by Judge André Mendonça, who described them as "notoriously false."

It was supported by the majority of the electoral court in a virtual vote.

"Attacks" on images

Lula echoed the controversy by declaring that "messing with Nossa Senhora Aparecida is not acceptable."

In a public event he raised her image with his arms and in an interview he kissed it.

The matter strikes a chord in a country where Catholics, the majority and more inclined towards Lula according to polls, worship this virgin.

Evangelicals, the Bolsonaro family's large electoral base, do not recognize it.

Lula "has taken advantage" of the controversy and "instead of being sincere, he is resorting to an artificial lie," André Paschoal, a 58-year-old Catholic parishioner in Rio de Janeiro, told AFP.

In parallel, Brazilian police are investigating what a Supreme Court judge described as an "apparent wave of attacks" against religious images.

The judge mentioned the destruction of images of saints in churches in Salvador (northeast) and that of the figure of Nossa Senhora Aparecida with an ax in a chapel in Mato Grosso (west).

Sovereignty

During the campaign, the leftist president has waved the flag of sovereignty, remembering at each rally that he told Donald Trump not to interfere in the Brazilian elections.

The American president, an ally of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, stated this Thursday that he is following the elections in Brazil "very closely."

Brazil's attorney general has asked to investigate an alleged plan by Washington to use public funds to promote an "extreme right-wing agenda" in the South American country.

The request came a day after the British newspaper The Guardian stated that the Trump government plans to finance organizations that oppose Brazil's Supreme Federal Court with one million dollars.

The article is "especially serious, given the Brazilian electoral process and the recent episodes of external pressure on the country's institutions," the attorney general's office stated.

Trump imposed sanctions on Brazil last year in retaliation for the Supreme Court trial against Jair Bolsonaro, convicted of coup plotting.

© 2026 AFP

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