Sawt Falasteen - Right-wing Brazil influencers on 'mission' to seal Bolsonaro win

The 23-year-old influencer, who was elected to the assembly of Sao Paulo with nearly two million votes on October 4, is one of the new faces of an insurgent ultraconservative movement that aims to get right-winger Flavio Bolsaro over the line in next week's presidential runoff.

The movement is powered by right-wing digital natives like Campopiano, who have racked up huge followings on social media in this ultra-connected country of 214 million inhabitants.

Flavio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, edged incumbent left-winger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the first round of voting, held on the same day as the general election.

He is favored to win the October 25 runoff but polls predict a tight contest.

"My mission is to ensure that Flavio Bolsonaro wins," Campopiano, who boasts three million followers on Instagram, said in a recent video.

A practicing Catholic with trendy oversized glasses, Campopiano has caused controversy by declaring that she "owes feminism nothing" and that femicide -- the killing of women and girls due to their gender, often by someone known to them -- shouldn't be a separate category of crime.

"We have to reinforce the traditional family model," she told AFP on the sidelines of a pro-Bolsonaro rally in Sao Paulo.

- 'A man is a man' -

Brazil has more influencers than any other country, according to sociologist Gabriela Mayall of Federal Fluminense University.

"Social networks have stopped being mere instruments for campaigning and become spaces for training new leaders," Mercia Alves, a researcher with the public policy think tank CEBRAP, said.

During the general election campaign Campopiano teamed up with 28-year-old federal congressional candidate Lucas Pavanato in a video mocking the trans community.

Pavanato, who was elected to the National Congress with three million votes and who wore a blonde wig in the post, lashed out at trans women being allowed use women's public toilets.

"I can't bear this masquerade any longer, a man is a man and a woman is a woman," he declared, ripping off his wig.

Several right-wing influencers have been accused of transphobia for attacking trans MP Erika Hilton, a social media star in her own right.

- Identity politics -

Flavio Bolsonaro has campaigned as a more moderate figure than his father, who had a history of racist, misogynistic and homophobic outbursts.

While the younger Bolsonaro has railed about "gender ideology" he is generally seen as more tolerant than the influencers trying to get the vote out for him.

He has, for example, vowed to campaign against femicide, a scourge in Brazil where four cases were reported daily last year.

But he benefits nonetheless from the echo chamber created by digital activists such as 30-year-old Nikolas Ferreira, who has spawned a host of imitators since becoming the most voted member of Brazil's lower house of Congress in 2022.

The conservative Christian activist, who also opposes "gender ideology" and has tens of millions of followers on social media, was re-elected to parliament by a landslide earlier this month.

"These days, we're faced with an identity phenomenon both on the right and left. The identitarian left pushes for example LGBT+ demands, which the identitarian right rejects," Gabriela Mayall said.

Lucas Pavanato offers a different reading of the rise of identity politics in Brazil.

"For a very long time the Brazilian political class was very timid, it was afraid of expressing itself," he told AFP.

Now, he says, "we say what we think, despite political pressure."

Y.Shaath--SF-PST