00:12With Brazil's presidential election just days away, the battle at the polls reveals a growing
00:18tension between Catholic and evangelical political identities in the country. More on
00:23this with a correspondent live from Rio de Janeiro. Welcome, Belém, to From the South.
00:28Hello, Luis. You are exactly correct. We are in the final stretch, and we've been saying
00:34this for the last few days, the final days. Everything is counting, particularly on a
00:40race that polls are saying is going to be a close one, although the polls for this first
00:46election day on October 4th is giving President Lula de Silva a number between four to five
00:53points, depending on the polls, on top of the opposition leader, Flavio Bolsonaro. It is
00:59still a close race. With the numbers that we have so far, of course, anything can change.
01:04We are looking about the election going into a run-up that will be on October 25th. And
01:10when we say that anything can play an important role in that moment, and that anything can
01:16tip the scale, we really mean that there can be any sort of different events that suddenly
01:24shift public opinion. And in this case, for example, we are talking about a Catholic icon,
01:29a Catholic speaker, that is playing a part in the final few days of campaign. Let me explain.
01:35We are talking about the Nossa Senhora da Aparecida, the patron of Brazil, and a news that has been
01:44circulating over the past few days. We're in an interview. Someone linked Flavio Bolsonaro and his
01:50campaign to a project that was supposed to eliminate the status of this Our Lady of Aparecida, a very
01:59important Catholic image linked to Brazil and Brazilian, particularly Catholic sector, to take
02:06away the role of patron of the country. This, of course, ruffled a lot of feathers, particularly in the
02:13Catholic community. Let's recall that there is a lot of Catholics in Brazil. It's a profoundly religious
02:20in general country, but with an important Catholic community. And this, of course, had an important
02:26impact. This was the campaign. Flavio Bolsonaro said that this was incorrect, that he did not
02:34have anything to do with this project. Such project existed, but it existed years ago. But it was led
02:42by a candidate that is now linked to Bolsonaro. So not particularly Bolsonaro himself, but someone
02:49within the Bolsonaro space did have a project like this years ago. But we are talking about it in the
02:572000s and it was retired in 2008. Why is this important? First, because it speaks to this project
03:05that was against this Catholic icon being patron of Brazil by law, by legislation. It has to do with the
03:15growing evangelical base and the impact that it has on Brazilian politics and particularly the strength it
03:23has given over the years to the Bolsonaro movement. And of course, what we're seeing now is how that base
03:30is also conflicting with the Catholic sector in an election and a population that more and more,
03:38this is happening in Brazil, but we can see it also across the continent and the world,
03:42how this religious interest also plays a very important part at the moment of casting a vote.
03:49So, of course, the Lula campaign was talking about this topic and addressing the Catholic population
03:56in particular, saying how they would always defend these important symbols. And with the Bolsonaro side
04:03trying to distance themselves from the project, actually one of the top four judges, André Mendoza,
04:10said that all the publications from social media needed to be taken away because they said this was
04:17fake news. And right now, today, the top court, the Supreme Court is going to rule on this decision
04:24of taking this information away from social media or not. So everything is happening and the polls are
04:31saying that this is having a positive impact for Lula. We're talking about maybe polls going up a couple of
04:37points because of this incident in particular. So just a way of understanding how this last few days
04:44are crucial and also how this different basis, different sectors of the population are interacting
04:51and how both campaigns are trying to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. This is what is
04:58happening and we will continue following because it's not the only thing happening right now. Just a little
05:03bit here from Rio de Janeiro.
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