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Brazil municipal elections runoff ratify “non political” candidates

Tuesday, November 1st 2016 - 02:16 UTC
Full article 7 comments
 Crivella wrote a book in 1999 calling Roman Catholics “demonic” and said Hindus drank their children's blood. He also claimed that homosexuality is evil Crivella wrote a book in 1999 calling Roman Catholics “demonic” and said Hindus drank their children's blood. He also claimed that homosexuality is evil
PT also lost the reins of power in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the city in which it was founded and where Lula lives PT also lost the reins of power in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the city in which it was founded and where Lula lives
Rousseff did not cast a ballot either on Sunday in Porto Alegre after the PT candidate there was knocked out of the run-off race in early October. Rousseff did not cast a ballot either on Sunday in Porto Alegre after the PT candidate there was knocked out of the run-off race in early October.

Marcelo Crivella on Sunday won the mayor's race in Rio de Janeiro, beating leftist Marcelo Freixo by a wide margin. Crivella, with the Brazilian Republican party, garnered 59.35% of the votes to 40.65% for Freixo, who is with the Socialism and Freedom Party.

 The 59-year-old Crivella is an engineer, writer, gospel singer and the nephew of Edir Macedo, the founder of the powerful and rich Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, and its Record television network, second in Brazilian rating.

“How is it possible that in Rio de Janeiro, a city of joy and openness about sexuality, there will be a mayor who is very conservative, discriminates and opposes Afro-Brazilian religions? The [centrist] alliance that governed the city has broken,” Mauricio Santoro, a political analyst at Rio’s State University, said.

Crivella is a bishop at the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, founded by his billionaire uncle. He made controversial statements in a book he wrote in 1999 where he called Roman Catholics “demonic” and said Hindus drank their children's blood. He also claimed that homosexuality is evil and that African religions worship “evil spirits.”

The bishop, now elected-mayor, said he would devote himself “above all to health, education, transport and public safety.”

Meanwhile, the Workers Party of former president Lula da Silva and removed president Dilma Rousseff was soundly defeated in the municipal election run-off round, losing the mayor-ships in Santo Andre, one of its political bastions, and Recife, the only state capital where it was competing in a second mayoral round.

The populist PT suffered a sound drubbing in the Oct. 2 first electoral round, its worst defeat in the past 20 years. With the loss in Santo Andre, the PT will have to give up its bastion in the Sao Paulo metro area, once considered a “red belt” due to the weight the party had achieved in the industrial zone.

The PT also lost the reins of power in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the city in which it was founded and where Lula lives, although he did not go to the polls on Sunday because of disagreements with the candidates, who belong to parties that supported his protege Rousseff's ouster.

Rousseff did not cast a ballot either on Sunday in Porto Alegre after the PT candidate there was knocked out of the run-off race in early October.

Of the four state capitals that the PT won in 2012, it maintained its control only in Rio Branco, in the small Amazon state of Acre, bordering on Bolivia and Peru.

Voters headed to the polls Sunday to cast ballots in run-off elections for mayors and council members in 57 municipalities. Nearly 33 million people were eligible to cast ballots in cities with populations of more than 200,000 where no candidate won over 50% of the vote in the first round of voting on Oct. 2.

Soldiers were deployed in 12 municipalities, several of which in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area, where acts of violence occurred during the campaign.

The municipal elections were being viewed as a barometer of the political climate in Brazil, where Rousseff was ousted by Congress on Aug. 31 and replaced by Michel Temer, a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, or PMDB.

Voters punished the PT in the first-round election, throwing their support to Brazilian Social Democratic Party, or PSDB, and governing PMDB candidates.

The PT's biggest loss on Oct. 2 came in Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous city, where the PSDB's Joao Doria, a maverick businessman who does not consider himself a politician, won with no need of a runoff.

Categories: Politics, Brazil.

Top Comments

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  • DemonTree

    He sounds like a right loon. The PT really must be unpopular!

    I hope those weird US religions are not catching on in South America, that's not going to help them at all.

    Nov 01st, 2016 - 04:54 pm 0
  • Jack Bauer

    The PT has finally met their Waterloo....they won in only 256 municipalities (down from 638 in 2016) out of 5,568. And out of those 256, only one town has more than 200,000 inhabitants. Think that says it all.
    Internally, the PT is desintegrating...lots of nasty in-house fighting, with quite a few pushing to expel all those accused of corruption - which won't leave many - with some of the lesser-radical members considering changing party, and a few intent on kicking out all current party leaders, including Lula. The fact is that Lula has been the Worker's Party's own worst enemy. Not to mention that he will probably be arrested soon, and will join other ex-PT leaders in prison.

    As to the 'weird religions', while they are nothing but a front to extort money from the ignorant, they are a serious social problem when one considers the average Brazilian's level of education.

    Nov 01st, 2016 - 05:33 pm 0
  • DemonTree

    The religion of the guy in the article certainly sounds pretty successful at making money, and less successful at doing anything useful for its followers. I really hope they don't become any more common in Brazil.

    It's unsurprising that the PT are pretty screwed after presiding over the recession and massive corruption scandal. Aren't there tons of parties in Brazil though. What are the chances that people will just move their support to a similar one? Or do you think they are more inclined to a total change of direction?

    About your other post, talking about military intervention; I'm surprised that any would be in favour. The military government in Brazil didn't kill as many people as those in Argentina and Chile, AFAIK, but they did torture a lot of people.

    However, since the majority recently voted for someone who did previously rise up in arms against the military government, it seems kind of unlikely that they would support any military intervention.

    Nov 03rd, 2016 - 12:29 am 0
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