The discourse of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and the Bolsonaro's rise

Abstract

This article presentes na analysis of the electoral political performance carried out by the newspaper “Folha Universal”, belonging to the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD), during the First and Second Round of the Elections of 2018. Our focus of analysis was the editorials and the political/electoral reports printed in the “iurdianos” weekly. The survey reveals that support for Jair Bolsonaro only became blunt at the end of the First Round, When researchs indicated that he had a high chance of being elected. This support was not given with an exhibition of the candidate's name or requests for explicit votes, but because of the guidelines and symbolic elements of the published articles, in which Bolsonaro's campaign jargon was repeated, such as the need to end the “oldpolitics”, defend “traditional family values”and the need to move away from“communism”. Such conceptions, in the electoral context, demonstrated affinities with the candidacy of Jair Bolsonaro and his presence, appearing in a privileged way on Rede Record of television, also of the Universal Church, ratified the condition of being supported by the religious institution.