After a close and polarised presidential race in 2022, Brazilians returned to the ballots this October to elect mayors and city councillors. In Latin America’s largest city, the local elections’ stakes are everything but local. With a GDP comparable to Morocco and over 11 million residents, mayorship of São Paulo is a powerful position, as well as a common stepping stone for federal political endeavours.
The race, predicted to be decided between right-wing incumbent Ricardo Nunes and left-wing opposition Guilherme Boulos, took an aggressive turn after the first round of debates when life coach Pablo Marçal, until then a complete outsider in the race, unsettled his opponents with a series of provocative (and often offensive) remarks. From questions like “Why are you such a liar and a thief?” to making up that his opponent had a cocaine addiction, the other candidates were so thrown off that they initially refused to attend any more debates where Marçal would be present. Nonetheless, Marçal proved that he could easily take his show elsewhere: he already had an impressive online platform, totalling, as of today, 13 million Instagram followers – the same amount as Lula, the current president.
In any medium, watching Pablo Marçal in action is no different from watching a reality show. You can feel your eyes glued to the screen, you have no choice but to stare at such an infinite game of “yes, and?”, where contestants keep upping the stakes to ensure they get airtime, and cameramen are told to keep rolling no matter what. The loudest bully is talked about the most – in the beginning, viewers hatewatch them, in turn creating a “buzzability” that garners them a new set of fans.
In true Society of the Spectacle fashion, Marçal skyrocketed to second place in the polls. Some, tired of the pompous rhetoric of career politicians, are drawn to his “tell it like it is” attitude, though virtually all of his claims have been proven false (his social media accounts even got taken down by courts for using bots and publishing fake news). His most famous proposals are installing cable cars to solve traffic and building the world’s tallest skyscraper (with no plans for its interior). What he does with mastery, nevertheless, is the spectacle – namely, the appearances. This is a man who became rich by selling online courses teaching people that becoming rich is entirely up to them – a sentiment, of course, that leaves him in a familiar place of zero accountability. If you apply his advice and the riches do not come, you simply did not try hard enough (maybe next time, try being the one selling the course). With the pandemic leaving a legacy of homelessness, unemployment, and overwhelmed public services in São Paulo, Marçal can appear quite heroic by uncovering all the hidden ties of moral corruption in the local political scene, thus seemingly empowering a population that feels vulnerable and forgotten, but that also still aspires for the level of prosperity Marçal himself displays to have meritocratically achieved.
Of course, the catch is that, much like reality TV, the storyline is meant to be compelling and entertaining – not true. While this strategy can be relatively harmless when done by Too Hot to Handle contestants, Marçal’s campaign has something to teach us about the harsh flip side of fake news.
The breaking point came when, during another mayoral debate, TV presenter turned candidate José Datena hit Marçal with a chair on live television after Marçal accused him of having a history of sexual assault and incited that Datena would not be “man enough” to slap him. Datena then yelled about how this accusation has destroyed his family and reputation as the channel quickly cut to a commercial break.
This served as a chilling wakeup call that elections can only be treated as a show or a popularity contest for so long before we are reminded of what is at stake. That politicians are not characters, but real humans, who, in turn, have great power to alleviate the suffering of millions of people. One cannot rely on appearances for long when what is being disguised is the material reality that the population experiences daily.
On October 6th, Marçal finished up the electoral race in a tight third place, mere 1.38% from first, and only 0.93% away from making it to the second round. Many sighed in relief, though arguably more concerning is that not winning appears to be the only consequence he will face. Marçal went as far as to manufacture a false drug test signed by a dead doctor stating that one of his opponents tested positive for cocaine, amounting to no electoral sanctions whatsoever. As fake news increasingly become the norm, regulating them has stumped even the most well-intended legislators – in Brazil, an anti-fake news bill was first introduced in 2020, and has ever since lived rent-free in a drawer somewhere in Congress. The more time passes, the more we are electing politicians that benefit from misinformation, and who are thus more prone to making sure these bills stay in the drawer.
This time, Marçal will not be joining the ranks, but he is expected to run for the federal senate or even for president in 2026. As for today, São Paulo stands as another chapter of an era of global politics convoluted by a spectacle of lies and deception, where what remains once the winner is announced is a great degree of human suffering and a defying insistence to hope for a better next four years.
Brazilian, big city girl and cat lover. Studied International Relations to get to know the world, and now does a master’s in Politics and Policy Analysis because she found a lot of stuff that needs to change. Hobbies include karaoke, seeing the face that a man makes when she beats him at foosball, guessing T-Swift songs in 0.5 seconds, and moving to a new country to figure herself out. Writes about culture, language and media, especially their intersection with politics and society.
