The trial in the (Superior Electoral Court) of the governor of , (), and the president of Alerj (Rio’s Legislative Assembly), Rodrigo Bacellar (), should begin this Tuesday (4), but will soon be suspended due to a request for review — more time for analysis.
The expectation, however, is that the case will return to the court’s agenda later this year.
Minister Isabel Gallotti reports on the process and should. If the position is confirmed by her and the board, both will also be ineligible for eight years.
One of the other judges must interrupt the analysis, but return the case to the plenary later this year. Inclusion on the agenda depends on the president of the TSE, Cármen Lúcia.
Behind the scenes, there is discomfort due to the fact that the rapporteur has not yet distributed the vote among her colleagues.
Castro’s trial takes place a year before the next elections. The result of the analysis could impact the right-wing design for the next legislature. For 2026, Castro aims for a seat in the Senate.
The agenda was made official last Wednesday (29), one day after the governor led the . Cármen, however, has denied any relationship between the progress of the process and the repercussions of the police action.
The official explanation is that Minister Gallotti leaves the TSE at the end of November, when she completes her second year at the court. On October 20, she sent a list of 17 cases in which she would like to present her vote, including the actions against Cláudio Castro.
Castro and Bacellar are accused of abuse of political and economic power in 2022. The actions that will be analyzed by the TSE deal with a scheme to hire employees from Ceperj (State Center for Statistics, Research and Training of Public Servants of Rio de Janeiro) as electoral canvassers.
According to the voting order, after the rapporteur, ministers Antonio Carlos Ferreira, Estela Aranha, , and the president of the TSE, , the last to speak, speak.
After the court ruled on the action, the governor highlighted, in a note, his trust in , in addition to remembering that the Regional Electoral Court of Rio de Janeiro dismissed the accusations due to lack of evidence.
Castro and Bacellar were acquitted in the TRE-RJ (Rio de Janeiro Regional Electoral Court) in May 2024 in a close vote, by 4 to 3. The Public Electoral Ministry took the case to the TSE, when appealing the decision.
In the event of Castro’s eventual impeachment, the TSE will have to consider the model for choosing the governor who will command the state of Rio under a buffer mandate. The Electoral Code defines that a new direct election must be called for the position, if the impeachment occurs before six months of the end of the term.
The State Constitution of Rio, however, establishes that an indirect election must be held, with members of the Legislative Assembly, if the governor is impeached halfway through his term. In general, the TSE aligns with federal legislation.
Electoral inspector Isabel Gallotti leaves the court on November 21, when she completes two years of her tenure as effective minister. The minister sent a letter to the president of the TSE communicating which processes in her office she considers to be priorities for inclusion in a trial session “given the imminent end of my two-year period in this Court”.
According to her, the cases were listed based on the “relevance and sensitivity of the topics”.
Precisely because this is a delicate moment, however, some magistrates believe it is not appropriate to judge the governor of Rio shortly after the operation.
The call was made in June 2022. The case refers to the use of Uerj (University of the State of Rio de Janeiro) and the Ceperj Foundation to pay employees of social projects without disclosing their names. Tens of thousands of people would have been hired without transparency.
An investigation by Rio discovered cash withdrawals from the “teller’s mouth”. In total, R$248 million were withdrawn from bank branches by tens of thousands of people who were part of the alleged scheme. Hiring was only interrupted in August, after public civil action by the state Public Ministry.
The case generated two judicial electoral investigation actions, one filed by the Marcelo Freixo (PT) ticket, defeated in the election, and another by the Electoral Prosecutor’s Office. TRE decided to combine the two into a single process. A criminal investigation is still ongoing.
If the two are impeached, through the line of succession, the president of the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice, judge Ricardo Castro, would take over the Guanabara Palace on an interim basis.
