By UNITED SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY (BRAZIL)

Starting this Sunday, Aug. 28, the calendar of television debates between the candidates for the presidency of the Republic begins. There will be five debates in total. But the mainstream press, instead of guaranteeing a constitutional right, the right to information, will hold the debate with only four of the 12 candidates.

The press, which should contribute to the democracy of the electoral process, clings to the anti-democratic laws of the Election Justice code to exclude candidates and prevent socialist and revolutionary candidates like Vera Lúcia and Raquel Tremembé, running on the United Socialist Workers’ Party (PSTU) ticket for president and vice president respectively, from presenting their program to the population.

Vera has polled in the top five by the two main research institutes (Datafolha and Ipec). She is technically tied in the polls with Simone Tebet (MDB). Tebet is a capitalist candidate and her party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB), is a capitalist party. She is on TV, websites, and printed newspapers every day and has a financial apparatus enormously superior to that of the PSTU. Within these conditions, Vera is actually ahead of Tebet. But the mainstream media doesn’t guarantee the same coverage space.

While Vera will appear once a week on Rede Globo’s TV news, Simone Tebet appears every day, because she is inserted as one of the “main” candidates. Which main candidate is this that doesn’t exceed 2% in the polls? When asked about the poll criteria, Rede Globo uses the barrier clause criteria and the representation in parliament.

In fact, the Globo Network and other media outlets are afraid of Vera and the program she defends. The mainstream media, which belongs to the bourgeoisie, doesn’t guarantee equal space for revolutionaries to present their program and ideas to the whole population as a matter of class. They are excluding Vera from debates because they want to prevent the revolutionary voice and program from echoing through the working class and oppressed populations. The law does not prohibit the participation of those who do not have parliamentary representation. The law requires the presence of those who do have such participation.

Therefore, we affirm that the posture of the mainstream media is anti-democratic, and we call on you to participate in the campaign in defense of Vera’s presence in the debates. We are calling for supporters of democratic rights to make a strong stir on social media using the hastag #QueroVeraNoDebate.

Join us in this democratic campaign, for the right of participation of the only worker, Black, northeastern, socialist, and revolutionary candidate for the presidency of the Republic.

 The United Socialist Workers Party (PSTU) is the Brazilian section of the International Workers League – FI. Translated from: https://www.pstu.org.br/eleicoes-participe-da-campanha-queroveranodebate/