Opinion – Latinoamérica21: The role of Venezuelan migration in the Brazilian elections

The issue of migration appears in election campaigns in different countries, especially through racist, xenophobic and nationalist anti-immigration discourses.

Constructed and amplified in the media, these discourses have sought to associate the growth of migration with economic crises, violence and social problems in the receiving countries.

In Europe, the United States and, more recently, in Latin America, far-right political parties have widely used these discourses to mobilize emotions and instil fear among voters.

In his last election campaign, former US President Donald Trump sought to benefit from the negative news about immigrants to gain support from public opinion in favor of approving the bill banning Muslims from entering the country and expanding of the US-Mexico border wall.

The Brexit campaign, which led the United Kingdom to formally withdraw its membership of the European Union, was also driven by the anti-immigration appeal and the resumption of border control. Anti-immigration rhetoric has also been invoked during election periods to divert public debate from issues such as inflation, unemployment and lack of investment in social policies.

Although it is recognized that far-right politicians use migration for political gain, the 2022 presidential election in Brazil was marked by a different discursive strategy from the far right represented by Jair Bolsonaro and the recent flows of Venezuelan immigration to the country.

Between 2016 and 2020, around 261,000 Venezuelan migrants arrived in Brazil, according to data from the Interagency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants, most of them recognized as refugees as a result of the reception policies implemented by the Bolsonaro government.

In the Brazilian elections, the increased presence of Venezuelan refugees did not fuel anti-immigration discourses, but, on the contrary, was appropriated by the government and its allies for the production and circulation of anti-Venezuela rhetoric.

By shifting from the fear of immigrants to the threat posed by the immigrants’ country of origin – Venezuela – and its government regime, this rhetoric served for the Brazilian extreme right to warn about the risk of implanting socialism and/or communism that could represent to the Brazil the election of the left-wing candidate, Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, linked to the Workers’ Party.

Throughout the Bolsonaro government and during the electoral campaign, this rhetoric has driven a type of narrative created and disseminated by conservative Latin American political sectors that have sought to link the current economic and political situation in Venezuela to other proposals coming from progressive fields in Latin America. .

In the first presidential debate broadcast in August 2022 by one of the main Brazilian television networks, Bolsonaro used this strategy in his last speech: “Who did Lula support in the past? He supported Chávez, he supported Maduro. Where did Venezuela go? Today we received more than 500 people a day there in Pacaraima, fleeing hunger and misery, violence, weighing an average of 15 kilos less, and Lula supported these candidacies”.

The circulation of content and denunciations about the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela attributed to the socialist and authoritarian regime of Maduro and triggering Venezuelan mass migration, had the participation of Bolsonaro, allied politicians, voters and supporters of the government, as well as the members themselves. Venezuelan immigrants.

The catchphrase “Brazil will become a Venezuela”, which had already gained notoriety, was articulated to Bolsonaro’s candidacy and electoral campaign on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube, as well as in WhatsApp and Telegram groups of Venezuelan immigrants.

The motto “Socialism segregates, Brazil welcomes” accompanied by the image of two Venezuelan children, composed an institutional piece produced by Acolhida Operation, Humanitarian Logistics Task Force of the Brazilian Army in conjunction with the Secretary of Communication of the Presidency of the Republic and disseminated in the digital networks during the election period. The piece invited people to know “the results of the Task Force that the federal government created to help Venezuelan refugees”.

Acolhida Operation is also the focus of the documentary Alhinhos – The Truth About the Failure of the Left in Venezuela, which addressed the trajectory of Venezuelan refugees received in Brazil by Acolhida Operation.

The documentary, without identification of authorship, circulated through social networks and WhatsApp groups after it was shared on the YouTube channel of Brazilian businessman and journalist Paulo Figueredo, a supporter of Bolsonaro who lives in Florida and works at Jovem Pan, a radio network and Brazilian commercial television aligned with the Bolsonaro government.

In the documentary, Venezuelan refugees recount their experiences from the perspective of strengthening what the text that accompanies its release on Youtube highlights: “Shattered lives, separated families, an entire society hostage to a tyrannical and sadistic regime, which placed 95% of the population in poverty and always had the support and admiration of the Brazilian left”. Migrants also gain prominence in a video of a demonstration by Venezuelans in the city of Boa Vista Roraima in which they call on Brazilians to vote for Bolsonaro.

Shared on the Roraima 24h profile on Instagram, the video received comments that also sought to warn of the risk of Brazil becoming Venezuela with the PT’s victory: “Vote, vote and confirm Bolsonaro 22”, and “Reflection of those who feel in their skin what is communism”, “That is indeed a moral lesson for ‘Brazilians’, PT never again”.

Eduardo Bittar, Venezuelan digital influencer and general coordinator of @Rumbo_Libertad, which presents itself as a “Venezuelan combat movement beyond our borders”, also acted in favor of Bolsonaro’s election with testimonies about the threat posed by socialism in his home country.

On October 30, 2022, the date of the second round elections in Brazil, Bittar posted, on his Twitter profile, a video in which he addresses Brazilians in Portuguese, to warn that “there are two directions, one that leads to the victory of freedom, the other, is the path that my country, Venezuela, took several decades ago. make them flee this country”.