Judge Paulo Eduardo de Almeida Sorci, of the Regional Electoral Court of São Paulo (TRE-SP), ordered this Thursday (2) the removal of the video in which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asks for votes for deputy Guilherme Boulos (PSOL-SP), pre-candidate for mayor of São Paulo in the October municipal elections.
The magistrate responded to the representation of the municipal directory of the Partido Novo, which claimed early electoral propaganda. Lula’s speech was given in São Paulo during an event on May 1st, Labor Day, at the Corinthians stadium, in the Itaquera neighborhood, in the East Zone of the capital of São Paulo.
Other pre-candidates sued the Electoral Court, as there are rules that prohibit the express request for votes before the start of the official electoral campaign period. Among them Marina Helena, from Novo. Representative Kim Kataguiri (União) and the municipal directory of MDB, the party of the current mayor and pre-candidate for re-election Ricardo Nunes, also represented the party.
In the decision ordering the removal of the video from the internet, judge Almeida Sorci wrote that “the permanence of the video on the network could tarnish the parity between the possible candidates for the upcoming election, especially because, in addition to the extemporaneity of the campaign act, it is of an ‘electoral cable’ of considerable relevance”.
The video with Lula’s statement was published on Wednesday (1st) on the CanalGov on YouTube, but it was removed the same day. The judge gave 48 hours for the images to be removed from Lula’s own official channel on the video platform. YouTube was notified to comply with the decision.
The judge, however, denied Novo’s request to force Lula to refrain from similar acts and statements in the future. He wrote that electoral legislation already prohibits such conduct, “it is up to the Judiciary to analyze specific cases and apply, if applicable, the appropriate sanctions”.