Renan Santos remains a candidate for Brazil’s presidency after Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) Justice Dias Toffoli suspended parts of his campaign over alleged failures to report social-media accounts to electoral authorities. The decision, signed on Sunday and released Monday, does not currently cancel Santos’ candidacy.
Toffoli suspended the campaign’s digital electoral advertising, transfers and spending using Brazil’s Electoral Fund, and Santos’ participation in debates on radio, television, podcasts and other media. The order is provisional, pending further information from the candidate and his party.
Santos coordinates the Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL), a Brazilian political movement, and is running for the Partido Missão, or Mission Party. His candidacy registration was filed on August 7. According to the decision summarized by CNN Brasil, the campaign reported 16 social-media profiles only on August 19, 12 days after the initial filing.
Why the Accounts Matter
Brazilian electoral rules require candidates to identify the websites, blogs and social-media accounts they intend to use during a campaign when they register their candidacies. Toffoli said undeclared profiles could continue to receive recommendations from platform algorithms while appearing to the companies as ordinary accounts.
The judge described the delay as a possible “strategic omission.” He examined one of Santos’ profiles, which had about 2.4 million followers, and said he found electoral advertising and recommendations involving other candidates.
The order also requires social-media platforms to suspend the irregular profiles and provide information about posts, paid promotion, advertisements, recommendations and the reach of the publications. The platforms were not identified in the source report.
Next Steps
Toffoli had already removed the review of the Mission Party ticket from the TSE’s virtual docket after identifying indications of possible irregularities in the use of social media. The new decision does not itself reject the registration, but it warns that noncompliance could eventually lead to that outcome.
Santos and the party have 24 hours to explain when each profile began being used for campaign advertising and whether other accounts were also used by the campaign. The response may affect the next stage of the registration process.
Santos criticized the measure in a video, calling it “unfair” and “illegal.” He said the campaign would challenge the decision before the TSE and described it as “persecutory.” Those comments are Santos’ characterization of the ruling, not a finding by the court.
This article is based on single-source reporting from CNN Brasil. The available report does not indicate whether the campaign had submitted its response by the time of publication.