Brazilian Presidential Election: Fernando Haddad Acknowledges that the Biggest Responsible for His Defeat at the Polls Was “Evangelical Phenomenon”
By Julio
Severo
In an interview with the prominent
Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo this week, former presidential candidate
Fernando Haddad, from the socialist Workers’ Party, which ruled Brazil from
2003 to 2016, has acknowledged that the biggest responsible for his defeat at
the polls was the “evangelical phenomenon.”
 |
| Fernando Haddad and evangelicals |
He blamed especially neo-Pentecostalism,
or charismatics, for his defeat.
“Brazil, structurally, is a hybrid between
castes and meritocracy. It is admitted that the individual may go up, but alone,
as long as the distance between classes remains. Neo-Pentecostalism and the Prosperity
Gospel are compatible with that,” Haddad said.
While historic Protestant churches
overwhelmingly affected by the Theology of Integral Mission (the Protestant
version of Liberation Theology, very similar to the Social Gospel) blame the Prosperity
Gospel for all the problems in the Evangelical Church in Brazil, Haddad has directly
blamed neo-Pentecostalism and the Prosperity Gospel for his defeat!
He hit the spot. When the initiative of
the ruling Workers’ Party for imposing homosexual indoctrination on schoolchildren
began to move forward in 2011 during Haddad’s term as minister of education,
the largest opposition came not from Catholic bishops nor from historic
Protestant churches like the Brazilian Presbyterian Church. It came from
neo-Pentecostal leaders, who eventually pressured the Evangelical Parliamentary
Caucus in the Brazilian Congress, which in turn pressured leftist President
Dilma Rousseff to veto it.
Haddad is not the first leftist leader to
identify neo-Pentecostalism as an obstacle to leftism. In 2016 Brazilian Marxist
philosopher Marilena Chaui said that the main threat to Brazilian leftism is
the Prosperity Gospel from neo-Pentecostal churches.
This theological modality, which was born
in the United States and is spreading as a wildfire in Brazil, has great
affinity with American capitalism and aversion to the socialist system. The
growth of neo-Pentecostalism creates natural friction with socialism. The more
neo-Pentecostalism, the less socialism. Venezuela, which is being ravaged by
socialism, is an example. There are very few neo-Pentecostal churches in Venezuela,
whose population is 96 percent Catholic.
Although Haddad attributed his defeat to neo-Pentecostalism
and although the
U.S. and Israeli media reported that Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro’s
greatest conservative force were evangelicals, Bolsonaro has so far given
priority to cabinet appointments to suggestions coming from Olavo de Carvalho,
whose adherents believe that without he Bolsonaro would not be president.
Although the name
of Rev. Silas Malafaia appeared several times in the big U.S. media as a
prominent influence that led evangelicals to vote for Bolsonaro, the new
president, when receiving the name of Guilherme Schelb coming from Malafaia for
minister of Education, preferred
to welcome the indication of anti-Trump Ricardo Vélez, coming from
Carvalho, although the name of Carvalho was not mentioned once in the big U.S. media
as having had any influence in the election of Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro also appointed as Foreign Minister
Ernesto Araújo, the name indicated by Carvalho. Araújo
has an article in a diplomatic magazine by Itamaraty, the Brazilian Foreign
Ministry, extolling the Islamic occultist René Guénon, who for many years has
been propagandized by Carvalho in Brazil.
While Haddad has expressed explicit
acknowledgment that his defeat was due to evangelicals, specifically to neo-Pentecostals,
from Bolsonaro has not yet come any acknowledgement that his victory was due to
them. On the day of his victory, Bolsonaro thanked Brazilians in general and
Olavo de Carvalho in particular.
However, from Carvalho, who has been
abundantly recommended by Bolsonaro and his sons in highly flattering Twitter
and Facebook messages, came a bizarre acknowledgement suggesting that
evangelical churches should be fought more than socialism has been fought.
Carvalho said: “Evangelical churches have done more harm to Brazil than the
entire left did.”
But who has been an influence, with his
advices, in Bolsonaro’s politics is not Haddad. It is Carvalho
himself, who became a Rasputin in his life.
Portuguese
version of this article: Fernando Haddad reconhece que o maior responsável pela
sua derrota nas urnas foi o “fenômeno evangélico”
Recommended Reading:
Posts
No comments :
Post a Comment