Bolsa Família increase becomes flashpoint in Brazil election
Maurício Moura
Divulgação
President Lula’s decision to raise cash transfer program Bolsa Família benefits just over two weeks before Brazil’s presidential election has quickly become a campaign battleground, with rivals challenging the measure in court, while Lula’s campaign seeks to portray the opposition as trying to block money for low-income families.
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Lula’s campaign believes the increase will help shore up support among lower-income voters who have traditionally backed his Workers’ Party but have shown signs of considering Flávio Bolsonaro amid dissatisfaction with the high cost of living.
On Thursday, Lula allies began highlighting a challenge filed with Brazil’s top electoral court by Congressman Zé Trovão, a close ally of the Bolsonaro family. That night, a WhatsApp channel run by Lula’s campaign posted a message saying that “Flávio Bolsonaro’s party wants to block the Bolsa Família increase.”
“Spread this news as widely as possible,” the campaign urged.
In an unusual twist, the challenge landed before Justice André Mendonça, who has been at the center of the Supreme Court crisis in recent weeks. Appointed to the court by former President Jair Bolsonaro, Mendonça has been accused, including by fellow justices, of trying to influence the election by seeking an investigation into Justice Alexandre de Moraes over suspected links to former Banco Master owner Daniel Vorcaro.
Mendonça quickly dismissed Trovão’s challenge without ruling on its merits, finding that the lawmaker lacked standing to bring a case alleging improper conduct by a presidential candidate.
Renan Santos, the presidential candidate of the Mission party, later filed a new challenge against the decree raising the benefit after calling the measure a “crime.” Mendonça also took on his case, but he has not ruled on it yet. “Electoral law does not allow you to change social benefits in an election year,” Santos said.
The Attorney General’s Office said after the government announced the increase that the measure “falls outside the scope of any electoral restriction.” It said adjusting the benefit in line with consumer inflation, without expanding the number of recipients, does not constitute conduct prohibited under electoral law.
Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign views the increase as a political trap. Although his allies consider the measure election-driven, its popularity led the campaign’s inner circle to decide not to challenge it in court.
The campaign assesses that Flávio is gaining ground in the polls and that a legal challenge to a measure putting more money in the hands of low-income families could hurt him. His allies also believe most recipients already support Lula and that the increase is therefore unlikely to alter Flávio’s trajectory in the race.
There is also concern that Lula’s campaign could portray Flávio as opposing social benefits. To counter that argument, his campaign plans to point out that former President Jair Bolsonaro also increased the benefit during his administration.
Still, Flávio criticized the timing of the announcement Thursday, just 17 days before the presidential election. His father, however, also adopted popular measures while seeking reelection in 2022. Jair Bolsonaro won congressional approval that year for a constitutional amendment that increased payments under Auxílio Brasil by 50%, as Bolsa Família was called during his administration, and expanded cooking-gas subsidies and benefits for truck and taxi drivers, among other measures.
At a rally in Vitória da Conquista, in the northeastern state of Bahia, Flávio compared the benefit's purchasing power under Lula with that during his father’s administration and described the increase as an act of desperation by the president.
“I’m going to look ahead because I want to help people like you who receive Bolsa Família,” he said. “Lula, in an act of desperation, has just issued a decree. He did something he hadn’t done in all these years in government. And with 17 days to go before the election, he thinks he’ll win people over by raising Bolsa Família. He knows he can’t do that. But I’m not desperate, because he knows he’s losing.”
Later, during the weekly livestream he has been holding on Thursdays, Flávio called the increase a “pittance.”
“I wanted to talk briefly about Lula’s desperation in announcing a Bolsa Família increase,” he said. “Lula, is that the card you’re playing? A 15% increase in Bolsa Família? Is that all? This pittance? Have you no shame, Lula? Do you think you’re going to buy poor people’s votes by giving them another R$90 a month?”
Flávio also said he would neither change the social program nor reverse Lula’s increase if elected. “Bolsa Família is guaranteed with me. I’ll keep this increase. But I’m going to do much more than that,” he said.
The Social Democratic Party presidential candidate, Ronaldo Caiado, also criticized the increase. In a social media post, the former Goiás governor said he did not oppose support for vulnerable families but questioned the measure's timing.
“No one is against helping those who need it most, and Bolsa Família should protect people living in vulnerable conditions. But approving a R$5.8 billion increase 17 days before the election exposes the program's electoral use. The country’s finances are in the red,” he wrote on X.
Maurício Moura, founder of polling firm Ideia, said the increase is likely to have only a limited electoral impact for Lula because Bolsa Família recipients already tend to support the president. “I think the impact will be marginal because this is already a group that tends to vote for Lula,” Moura said.
(Guilherme Carvalho in São Paulo contributed to this report.)
