Brazilian election gag no laughing matter for comics

The Guardian

Make no joke about it, Brazil's presidential election is a serious affair. Brazilian TV and radio broadcasters are legally forbidden from making fun of candidates ahead of October's vote.

With the first wave of on-air political ads starting today, Brazil's comedians and satirists are planning to fight for their right to ridicule, with protests planned in Rio de Janeiro and other cities on Sunday.

They say the anti-joking law – which prohibits ridiculing candidates in the three months before elections – is a draconian relic of Brazil's dictatorship that threatens free speech. Proponents say the restrictions keep candidates from being portrayed unfairly and encourage candour.

"Do you know of any other democracy in the world with rules like this?" said Marcelo Tas, the host of a weekly TV comedy show that skewers politicians and celebrities alike. "If you want to find a bigger joke, you would have to look to Monty Python."

Breaching the law is punishable by fines up to £72,000 and a suspension of a broadcaster's licence. Only a few fines have been handed out, but Tas and others say that has been sufficient to cause TV and radio stations to self-censor their material during elections.

Under the law, TV and radio programmes cannot "use trickery, montages or other features of audio or video in any way to degrade or ridicule a candidate, party or coalition". The internet is not licensed by the government and so is not covered, but if a TV or radio programme were to ridicule a candidate online, a complaint could be judged by the supreme electoral court.

Fernando Neves, a former head of the electoral court, defended the law as fair-minded. "A broadcaster cannot make jokes that make one candidate look bad," he told the O Globo newspaper recently. "That's the way it is. The law doesn't permit it and I think it has its reason for being."

With no comic relief in sight, Brazilians are in for weeks of deadpan news coverage of some quirky candidates. Dilma Rousseff, the governing party candidate who tops all polls, has a lumbering speaking manner and a tough management style that earned her the nickname Iron Lady. Her main opponent, José Serra, is widely seen by Brazilians as lacking charisma.