Wearing bright red body-hugging tights with the Labor Party logo on the back, Brazilian pop star Anitta seductively strokes a dance pole and urges her 60 million Instagram followers to vote for Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Artists like Anitta are pulling out all the stops, flaunting sex appeal and star power ahead of Sunday’s high-profile election to sway voters for either left-wing Lula or his far-right rival Jair Bolsonaro.

Analysts say the mobilization could work as young people register to vote in large numbers, with record numbers in the 16-18 age group.

“There is a feeling of distrust towards politics. When a celebrity says they’re going to vote for a candidate… they touch their fans in a more personal way and erase that sense of distrust,” Issaaf Karhawi, a social media researcher at the University of Sao Paulo, told AFP.

The list of ex-President Lula’s celebrity supporters is as long as it is varied and stretches as far as Hollywood.

At a concert-style campaign event in Sao Paulo on Thursday night, pro-Lula video messages from American actors Mark Ruffalo and Danny Glover complemented the message of “hope” championed by local celebrities on stage.

While Lula’s camp includes everything from Brazilian pop megastars and rappers to popular singers from an earlier generation like Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, Bolsonaro draws most of his celebrity support from sertanejo, a style of Brazilian-influenced country music.

Sertanejo star Gusttavo Lima, 33, declared his support for Bolsonaro back in 2018, brandishing an assault rifle in a video supporting the then-presidential candidate’s weapons policy.

Recently, at a concert in Brasilia, Lima, who has more than 44 million followers on Instagram, launched a diatribe against the “communism” that he and Bolsonaro claim Lula embodies and defended the values ??”God, homeland and family.” of the incumbent President.

Celebrity left-wing activism is nothing new to Brazil and dates back to the opposition movement against the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, said historian Paulo Cesar Gomes of Fluminense Federal University.

But, he added, “to see singers supporting the far right is much more recent” – a phenomenon dating no earlier than the 2013 mass rallies against leftist President Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached in 2016.

While Anitta or her colleague Ludmilla have their fans mainly in Brazil’s sprawling urban favelas, the Sertanejo stars appeal to rural voters in Bolsonaro’s conservative bastions.

But do these celebrity interventions make a difference?

Possibly, Karhawi said, by getting large numbers of young people active on social media to vote.

To that end, Anitta, the first Brazilian singer to make it to the top of the Spotify charts, told fans she would only pose for photos with those who were registered to vote.

Calls for voter mobilization also came from the United States.

In April, Leonardo DiCaprio tweeted, “Brazil is home to the Amazon and other ecosystems critical to climate change.

Bolsonaro responded with sarcasm at the time, tweeting: “Thanks for your support Leo! It is really important that all Brazilians vote in the upcoming elections.”

Observers say the star-studded campaigns could also have unintended consequences.

“Bolsonaro’s campaign feeds on these (celebrity) attacks to mobilize his supporters,” said pop culture researcher Thiago Soares of the University of Pernambuco.

“Rejecting a hypersexualized artist like Anitta can be a good thing for him (Bolsonaro) and strengthens his position as a defender of traditional mores.”