The mayor of Rio and future candidate for governor, Eduardo Paes (PSD), consolidated the MDB’s support for the October election. This Thursday (19), the national president of the party, Baleia Rossi, will participate in an event alongside state members of the party and Paes himself in order to forward the alliance and indicate a name for the vice-president.
After conversations between Paes and the state head of the MDB, Washington Reis, the appointment of his sister, Jane Reis, a lawyer linked to the Assembly of God and active in social projects in Baixada Fluminense, was decided. The family is ahead of Duque de Caxias, a municipality with the second largest electoral college in the state. Along with the regional factor, the religious bias is considered the main asset of the partnership.
Paes and the state leader of the PSD, Pedro Paulo, visited Reis shortly after the Federal Supreme Court (STF) postponed again, with a request from minister Luiz Fux, the analysis of the case against the former mayor of Caxias that left him ineligible for an environmental crime. Faced with the realization that he would not be able to be on the ballot this year, he hurried and closed the deal with the mayor of the capital.
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— We will nominate the vice tomorrow. Paes wants a woman — confirms Washington.
Before Jane’s name entered the conversation, the emedebista suggested another brother, state deputy Rosenverg Reis, but the mayor expressed his preference for a woman, despite the fact that those up until then for the post — affiliated to different parties — were men.
In addition to the Reis family, Paes had been talking to other MDB officials, such as the former minister and now national secretary of sanitation, Leonardo Picciani, and the party leader in the Chamber of Deputies, Isnaldo Bulhões, to seek support. In the eyes of the national leadership of the party, the alliance is advantageous to boost a good nomination of deputies.
The pre-candidate for government has always had the PP as the acronym to be won to offer the vice, given the party’s reach in the state — it is the second with the largest number of city halls, behind only the PL. However, it weighs against the fact that União Brasil commands the federation that the parties tend to form in Rio, which makes early agreements between the PSD and PP difficult.
Washington Reis is one of the Bolsonaro family’s most prestigious figures in Rio. The entry of the former mayor’s political group helps, according to interlocutors, to “expand” Paes’ ticket, who is afraid of being too closely associated with President Lula (PT) in a state that is refractory to the PT member.
Paes was a member of the MDB for ten years, between 2007 and 2017. He was twice elected mayor for the acronym. He left after the Lava-Jato attack, which devastated almost all Emedebista bigwigs in Rio, especially former governor Sérgio Cabral.
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