Left-wing parties around the world feel inspired by the election victory in the USA. If you want to convert the mood into election results, it's worth looking at Brazil.
The left in Europe and Latin America is fascinated by a new form of digital mobilization from the Brazilian election campaign. MP André Janones quickly achieved a victory for Lula da Silva via WhatsApp after a defeat in the first round of voting.
Janones' approach is attracting a lot of international attention, with the Spanish Socialists and the Argentine Peronists, among others, showing interest in his strategy.
Salvador. Left-wing politicians in Europe and Latin America are gaining new courage. Not only the election in the USA, but also the election in Brazil showed what is possible. Spain's socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also hopes: "What happened in Brazil will also happen in Spain." And he also gives his expectations a global framework. “The comeback of progressives worldwide has only just begun,” he says.
Sánchez has now invited Brazilian MP André Janones to his country. Lawyer Janones was the organizer of Lula's digital campaign army and successfully mobilized millions of supporters for the presidential election campaign in October. The Spanish Socialists also want to rely on his support in the parliamentary elections at the end of November.
In France, too, Jean-Luc Mélenchon's left-wing movement is based on Janones' model. French MP Antoine Léaument confirms: “This mobilization technique is excellent.”
The new thing about it: WhatsApp becomes the command center of a voluntary mass movement, turning passive recipients of political messages into an army of millions of campaign workers. In France, a WhatsApp channel based on the Brazilian model currently has more than 160,000 subscribers. Will the digital election campaign in Brazil become a model for the left worldwide?
What fascinates the left in Europe and Latin America is above all the new form of digital mobilization with which the 42-year-old Janones radically changed the election campaign in the last three weeks before Lula's runoff election.
For the first time, the Brazilian MP succeeded in challenging the right's digital superiority on a large scale and quickly made up a deficit of around two million votes. The new and old President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, finally prevailed over the right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro by more than four million votes.
At the victory celebration that followed, Janones stood out visually alone: the MP was the only one not wearing the red of Lula's Workers' Party, but the yellow jersey of the Brazilian national soccer team. So far, Bolsonaro's supporters in particular have claimed this symbol as their own. The conscious choice of clothing symbolizes how skillfully Janones makes use of the instruments of the right and beats them with their own weapons.
The election victory after the second round on October 25th in Brazil was preceded by a first round (October 4th) that Lula lost. Janones was then given free rein to reorganize the digital campaign - and knew how to use it.
In just three weeks he set up the WhatsApp channel “Exército do Lula” (“Lula’s Army”). The number of subscribers rose at a record pace from 50,000 to more than ten million. Janones appointed himself a “general” and his followers “soldiers”. He then gave them new “missions” around the clock via voice message: distribute videos, comment on Instagram posts, reinforce hashtags or enter certain search terms on Google. “Explodam!” (“Explode!”) was his order.
He also asked Lula supporters to wear the Seleção national jersey and make the L sign for Lula with their thumb and forefinger. On the day of the first TV debate alone, Janones sent 369 messages, including 47 voice messages, according to evaluations by the news portal “Jota”.
During the Brazilian election campaign, WhatsApp became the command center of a voluntary mass movement for the first time. Previously passive citizens of political embassies turned into millions of campaign workers. Guilherme Russo from the polling institute Quaest confirms: “No one has done this before in Brazil.”
Until now, the Internet had been the domain of the right. In 2018, ex-President Jair Bolsonaro, who has since been convicted of an attempted coup, mobilized his supporters primarily via digital networks, many of whom worshiped the former army captain in an almost cult-like manner. His son Flávio also used digital media for his campaign this year. Right-wing influencers were elected to Congress with millions of votes in the parliamentary elections.
“They determined the narrative and we followed them,” said Janones, summing up the events of those days in the magazine “Carta Capital”. But the left has learned. "Whoever controls the algorithm controls politics. Whoever wins in social networks also wins in the real world." The MP is convinced that the balance of power has permanently shifted. And he ventures a prediction: “The extreme right will never again have dominance in social networks.
A fair assessment of the surprising victory also includes the performance of Lula himself, who, according to Janones, is a born communicator. “He's like Messi, who needs a few fast players to run for him,” he compares the aging socialist with Argentina's soccer star.
And while Lula increasingly exploited his strengths as a communicator, Flávio Bolsonaro revealed his weaknesses, especially in the television debates. For example, he referred to Lula as “nine fingers” in one. As a young factory worker, the current president lost one of his little fingers in an accident at a factory. Bolsonaro's malice for this caused communicative damage. Lula countered him that he had probably never done any physical work before. This clip alone was shared millions of times by his followers.
So leftists around the world who feel inspired by Janone's success should look at the bigger picture. Of course, Lula also lured his voters with promised social benefits, tax breaks and government loans. The fact that Bolsonaro also tried to do so remained unbelievable. His sudden commitment to the socially disadvantaged seemed highly incompatible with his economically liberal program.
There were also investigations against him for suspected financial crimes and connections to organized crime. Bolsonaro's flight to the USA three days after the election seems to subsequently confirm these allegations.
Anyone who takes into account all the aspects of the election campaign he won will still come to the conclusion: Janone's achievements should not be underestimated. Because the MP understood better than the influential officials of Lula's Workers' Party how to reach poorer Brazilians through communication. This may be because Janones himself grew up in abject poverty, with a father who died early and a mother who supported her sons as a household helper. Hunger is no stranger to him. As a bus conductor he financed his law studies.
When the party leadership opened Lula's election campaign in August at the historic union site of Vila Euclides, Janones reacted blankly: "I'm 40 years old and I don't know what Vila Euclides is. Do you think people know that?"
Back then, the party leaders didn’t listen to him. Today, leftists and social democrats from all over the world want to learn from him. This also includes Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum, who invites him to her country.
The Brazilian met with former President Cristina Kirchner and former presidential candidate Sergio Massa in Buenos Aires on Monday. The Argentine Peronists want to use Janones' methods to build a digital movement against President Javier Milei. There will be presidential elections in a year.
