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Senator David Alcolumbre (Union-AP), 47, was once again elected president of the Senate on Saturday (1st).
David Alcolumbre is elected president of the Senate with 73 votes. Photo: Senate Agency
The minimum number of 41 votes was reached at 3:12 pm – and the result, proclaimed at 15:19. All 81 senators voted.
- David Alcolumbre (Union-AP): 73 votes – elected
- Astronaut Marcos Pontes (PL-SP): 4 votes
- Eduardo Girão (Novo-CE): 4 votes
Shortly after the proclamation, the Senate Plenary images showed senators Randolfe Rodrigues (PT-AP) and Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) passing on calls to the newborn alcohubre.
The parliamentarians confirmed to GloboNews that the calls were from Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro, respectively.
With the result, David Alcolumbre will be president of the house for the second time. He has already held the position in the 2019-2020 biennium.
Senator Davi Alcolumbre (Union-AP)-Photo: Marcos Oliveira/Senate Agency
Still in 2024, the new Senate President had already formed an arc of alliances virtually impossible to be defeated, with parties from both the government base and the opposition.
He managed to gather subtitles that add up to 73 congressmen: PSD (15), PL (14), MDB (11), PT (9), Union (7), PP (6), PSB (4), Republicans (4) and PDT (3), besides three Somnators of Somos and one from PSDB.
That is: 76 parliamentarians, the equivalent of 94% of the Senate, were already closed with the then candidate.
The first alcohubre management was from 2019 to 2021. On this first occasion, the parliamentarian won after the withdrawal of Renan Calheiros (MDB-AL)-who had already commanded the house four times.
The dispute at that time was very tumultuous and even had a ghost vote. In the final count, 82 votes were recorded, although the Senate consists of 81 senators.
The suspicion of fraud has not been clarified to this day by the Senate. At the time, images made by TV Globo revealed that the votes of these two unlots without envelopes were for Calheiros.
Without reelection, but with prestige
A rule provided for in the Constitution and reinforced by decision of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) prevented alcoholumbre from applying for reelection in 2020.
This standard says that the presidents of the House and Senate can seek reelection shortly after a general election – that is, when there is in possession of new deputies and senators. But they cannot be reelected in the election that happens during the legislature (in the middle of the mandate).
Alcolumbre, then, helped elect Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG) as his successor. Pacheco, yes, could run for reelection and was in office between 2021 and 2025.
Over the past four years, Alcolumbre has held the presidency of the most important commission of the House, that of Constitution and Justice (CCJ).
He followed with a role of protagonism in the house, was the kind of a “prime minister”-the right arm of Pacheco-by being able to influence which projects would be based and coordinating the distribution of parliamentary amendments.
Amendments are expenses that deputies and senators indicate in their electoral bases, in the form of projects and works.
Alcolumbre assumes the Senate at a time when the Supreme Court Minister (STF) Flávio Dino charges more transparency in the process of these nominations, especially in relation to commission amendments, derived from the so -called “secret budget”.
In his first management, Alcolumbre worked to boost the amount of the amendments and to have the Congress power over a larger share of the federal budget.
Last year, at the request of Dino, the Union Comptroller General (CGU) showed that between 2020 and 2023, five of the ten cities benefiting from parliamentary amendments are located in Amapá, a alcohubre state. The survey is a calculation made taking into account the proportion of the number of inhabitants.
The Senator of Amapá, who in his first management was the ally of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), is now from the basis of the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT).
When Lula took over two years ago, Alcolumbre indicated two names to occupy ministries on the Esplanade.
Although, in the first management, alcohubre emerged as a “renewal” name for the Senate – against the most traditional picture that was Renan Calheiros – the Senator of Amapá adopted a very pragmatic stance.
At this time, in 2020, Alcolumbre was able, for example, to include Amapá watersheds in the area of activity of the São Francisco Valley Development Company (Codevasf).
Even outside the Senate presidency, Alcolumbre maintained this style in the first half of the Lula administration.
He acted, for example, to accelerate the vote and to ensure a good score to approve economist Gabriel Galipolo to chair the Central Bank and dispatch the government’s spending cutting package. The latter was voted in record time by Congress last week of last year’s legislative agenda.
Unlike Pacheco, Alcolumbre was also able to gather the opposition support for the current dispute.
With this, in the next two years, it should accommodate the PL in relevant positions – the party leads the opposition to Lula and has the second largest bench in the Senate.
The first vice president of the Senate should be Eduardo Gomes (PL-TO). And the senator quoted to chair the Public Security Commission is Flávio Bolsonaro.
Damares Alves (Republicans-DF) must be the chairman of the Human Rights Commission (CDH). She was a minister of women, family and human rights, from 2019 to 2022 in the Bolsonaro government.
Therefore, one of Alcolumbre’s challenges will be to balance the yearnings of the base and opposition, which defends guidelines such as amnesty to prisoners who tried a military coup on January 8, 2023 and the impeachment of STF Minister Alexandre de Moraes.
They even filed a candidacy to face alcohumbre: Marcos do Val (Somos), Soraya Thronicke (Somos-MS), astronaut Marcos Pontes (PL-SP) and Eduardo Girão (Novo-CE).
Only the candidacy of Girão, the new representative of the new Senate, received the party support. The Subtitles of Thronicke, from Val and Pontes supported alcohumbre.
In your speech as a candidate, I alcohubre:
- said it is “essential to respect judicial decisions”, but considered that “it is equally Irespectable to respect the prerogatives of the legislature and ensure that this parliament can exercise its constitutional duty to legislate ”;
- promised more Senate protagonism in relation to the Chamberand made the commitment not to allow the House to have the final word about projects that originate in the Senate;
- stated that the Provisional Measures (MPS) process will be resumed. The Constitution states that, after the executive issued an MP, the text will pass through a mixed committee, formed by deputies and senators, and then the plenary of the House and Senate. This rule was not fulfilled in the management of Pacheco due to the disagreement of the mayor, Arthur Lira (PP-AL). “The mixed committees are mandatory by constitutional command. Suppressing them or neglecting them is not only wrong from the point of view of the process: it is a reduction in the role of the Federal Senate, ”said Alcolumbre;
- defended the decentralization of politics, to strengthen the municipalities. “My struggle is, and it will always be, for the municipalities to occupy the center of our federative arrangement,” he said;
- stated that “ Hate speech and aggressions contaminate social networks. We need to rebuild bridges and remember that opponents are partners in the democratic debate. ”
Married and father of two children, Alcolumbre was born in Macapá (AP) on June 19, 1977. He is the fourth son of mechanic José Tobelem and businesswoman Julia Alcolumbre.
He started working in the family trade. He began the Economic Sciences course at the Amapá Higher Education Center (CEAP), but did not conclude and decided to follow the path of politics.
The political trajectory began as councilor in the city of Macapá. He held his term for two years (from 2001 to 2002), when he left office in half to take the first term as a federal deputy.
He reelected himself twice to the House of Representatives, totaling three consecutive terms.
In the 2014 elections, he was elected senator for an eight -year term. In 2018, he ran for the government of Amapá, but was in third place. Then he returned to the Senate.
He managed to arrive for the first time to the presidency of the Senate in 2019 by winning, with 42 votes, an election marked by controversies.
