Competing for the position to replace Elmar Nascimento (from Bahia) are deputies Mendonça Filho (Pernambuco), Pedro Lucas Fernandes (Maranhão) and Damião Feliciano (Paraíba)
União Brasil decided to postpone the election for the new leader of the party in the Chamber of Deputies until 2025. Initially it was planned that the successor of (from Bahia) would be defined last Wednesday (18.dec.2024), however there was internal discussion in the party, with differences between the wing that wants to have a dialogue with the current government and the wing that prefers to be in opposition.
According to The Globethe party meeting was marked by complaints from several parliamentarians. Antônio Rueda, president of União Brasil, Juscelino Filho, minister of Communications, and Celso Sabino, minister of Tourism, were present. The ministers were appointed by the acronym to form the current government.
Among the candidates to lead the party are (Pernambuco), (Paraíba) and (Maranhão). No date has been set for when the new leader of União Brasil will be chosen in the Chamber, but it is expected to happen in February 2025, when legislative work resumes.
Deputy Mendonça Filho is part of the group of parliamentarians with an opposition profile, while Fernandes and Feliciano prefer to maintain more dialogue with the government.
To the The Globeminister Celso Sabino said that Elmar Nascimento’s successor should maintain a similar stance to the current leader of União Brasil. The deputy (Bahia) stated at the meeting that the party’s division is not well regarded by the majority of the bench and that União Brasil is the target of irony due to internal fights.
DOME MEMBER ARRESTED
The choice of the new leader of União Brasil is being impacted by the arrest of Marcos Moura, a member of the party’s National Directory. He is a businessman and lives in cities in Bahia.
Moura is being accused by the Federal Police of involvement in a scheme that would have embezzled R$1.4 billion in fraudulent tenders from city halls with the (National Department of Works Against Droughts). PF report on the case points out that the businessman had direct contact with an advisor to the senator (União-AP) – tipped to take command of the Senate from the party next year.
The one investigating all these facts was launched on December 10, 2024. It seized R$1.5 million on a flight leaving Salvador bound for Brasília, allegedly at the behest of Marcos Moura. The money would be used as payment to businesspeople involved in a bid-rigging scheme.
Marcos Moura has a direct relationship with ACM Neto, who was a federal deputy and mayor of Salvador and is now national vice-president of União Brasil.
Operation Overclean also drew attention to a curious fact: the elected councilor of Campos Formoso (BA) (União Brasil), cousin of Elmar Nascimento, had a bag with R$220,150 out the window before being arrested on December 10th. Elmar Nascimento is not the target of the operation.
WHAT IS UNIÃO BRAZIL
The is a party that brings together mostly center-right and right-wing politicians. It was created in October 2021 from the merger of two other parties, the DEM and the PSL (Social Liberal Party). Today, União Brasil has .
The DEM, an acronym for the former Democrats, was a party derived from the PFL (Liberal Front Party), which had been created from a branch of the former PDS, in the 1980s in the transition from military dictatorship to democracy. The PDS, in turn, was the heir to the old government party that supported the military regime that prevailed in Brazil from 1964 to 1985.
The PSL, before merging with the DEM to create União Brasil, was a microparty that had been created in 1994 by the center-right businessman from Pernambuco, Luciano Bivar, and who served as director of the Recife-based football club Sport. The official registration of the party only took place in 1998 and the acronym never had much expression until 2018, when it hosted the then federal deputy (PL), elected president of the Republic that year. The PSL had only 1 federal deputy at the time and ended up winning a bench of 52 seats in the Chamber.
Bolsonaro wanted to command the PSL and ended up falling out with Luciano Bivar and leaving the party. From then on, the association ran the risk of losing relevance – a process similar to what happened with the DEM. For this reason there was a merger, and União Brasil was born with 81 federal deputies.
In the 2022 election, however, União Brasil began to dehydrate: the 81 federal deputies at the beginning of the merger only became .
