Rio samba school honors Lula amid election-year backlash

From an electoral law standpoint, Neisser said Brazil loosened its rules on pre-election communication in 2015. Before that, he said, there was a broader ban on campaigning before the official campaign period begins on Aug. 16.

With the change, Neisser said, the rule became more permissive and the main limit became an explicit request for votes, but interpretation also includes constructions that are semantically equivalent — messages that, even without saying “vote for,” function as an electoral call.

“I did not see any message that would fall under the electoral court’s ban on illegal early campaigning,” he said. “It praises the past and the present, but not the future. There is no message, even indirectly, that speaks to the 2026 elections.”

Neisser said that while the choice of theme is legitimate, the school should expect heightened scrutiny.

“The school, by choosing the theme it chose, knew there would be special attention — whether from the press, from opponents, from society, from the electoral prosecutor’s office,” he said. “If I were called to advise the board, I would tell them to take a series of precautions.”

He said he believes the fact that Lula is a sitting president in a year of general elections makes the issue more sensitive, even if there is “a story to be told” and the tribute “does not feel artificial.”

Leonardo Avritzer, a political scientist and a professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, offered a similar reading.

“Lula is more than a sitting president. He is someone who governed Brazil for more than 10 years and has a very specific story, tied to migration in the Northeast, to redemocratization, to Bolsa Família, and to his imprisonment in the context of Operation Car Wash,” he said. “In that sense, I think it is more Lula the man being discussed than Lula the president.”

Avritzer added that in Brazil, Carnival has always had a political dimension, especially in Rio’s samba school parades. Still, he said that despite media visibility, the parade tends not to produce lasting effects in public debate.

“I don’t see a political stance becoming relevant from a tribute in the parade,” he said.

Anderson Baltar, a popular culture researcher and author of two books about Carnival, said politics has long been part of Brazil’s best-known celebration. He said the rise of samba schools in the 1930s was tied to the Estado Novo dictatorship’s effort to shape a national cultural identity.

“Samba became part of that project. The schools themselves, seeking recognition from public authorities — and even the right to parade — went through a process of negotiation with the state,” he said. “At the time, people could be arrested just for carrying a guitar or a tambourine.”

“In exchange, the schools adopted rules requiring national, patriotic themes that exalted historical heroes,” he added.

Baltar said Lula is not the first president to be the subject of a samba school theme — the novelty is that he is being honored while in office. Lula was previously honored in 2012 by the São Paulo school Gaviões da Fiel, when Brazil was governed by Dilma Rousseff, his successor.

“When rumors about the theme first surfaced, I worried it could create political backlash — even problems with Brazil’s electoral courts,” he said. “But I think it has been very good for the school. It is new and relatively unknown, and it has gained media attention and support from left-leaning voters.”

Acadêmicos de Niterói is only six years old, making it the youngest samba school to reach Rio’s top-tier Special Group, which includes 12 schools. In 2025, it won Série Ouro — the city’s second division — with “Vixe Maria,” a theme about Brazil’s June festivals, earning its first promotion to the elite level.

Baltar said Acadêmicos de Niterói opted to commission the samba rather than hold an internal competition, as is customary, and that the work was signed by well-known composers.

Although he does not consider it “one of the best sambas of the year,” Baltar said the song “does what it needs to do,” clearly delivering the theme’s message, with a chorus that “caught on” by echoing an electoral jingle.

He said that helped attract support from left-leaning spectators and raise the profile of a school making its debut in the Special Group, where newly promoted schools are often relegated the following year.

Acadêmicos de Niterói’s fate — at least from a Carnival standpoint — will be known at the official scoring, scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.

Courthouse News reporter Marília Marasciulo is based in Brazil.