It has been reported that Lula da Silva who has been re-elected as President of Brazil does not own a mobile phone and does not know how to use one. It’s reminiscent of Tony Blair in the New Labour era. It also echoes Nigel Farage who does own a mobile but outsources its use for visual and memes to the more tech savvy.
Lula’s campaign took Meta to Court during the election alleging that it was favouring posts from the far right candidate Bolonsaro. Meta denied this but lost and it seems to have been confirmed by disenchanted Meta employees.
Trailing after the first round of voting it appears that Lula was persuaded if not to actually own a mobile (Galaxy S26) at least to use one for campaign purposes. A tech savvy advisor appeared and so did Lula selfies, Tik Tik posts and so on and a WhatsApp channel
I doubt any of that was enough to swing victory for Lula. What it did underline was a belated understanding that his campaign needed to engage supporters, many of whom had abstained in the first round. The election weekend saw mass demonstrations by Lula supporters. Perhaps they were mobilised by social media but it was their physical presence on the ground and in the voting stations that counted.
Leave a Reply