Delegate Felipe Curi, former head of Rio’s Civil Police, signed his PP membership form this Tuesday. The agreement reached with the party’s state president, Doctor Luizinho, is for Curi to run for federal deputy this year. He remains one of those considered, however, to replace former governor Cláudio Castro (PL) in a possible candidacy for the Senate.
Curi was approached about joining the PL, but chose to join another party within the government base in Rio. The delegate hoped to be chosen by the PL to run for governor, but was passed over in February, when senator and presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) announced his endorsement of Douglas Ruas’ pre-candidacy for the party.
For now, the PP has already nominated the candidate for Ruas’ vice-president — the former mayor of Nova Iguaçu, Rogério Lisboa —, and is also present on the government ticket with the nomination of the mayor of Belford Roxo, Márcio Canella, as a pre-candidate for the Senate. Canella is affiliated with União Brasil, a party that formed a federation with the PP for this year’s election.
The other senator’s spot on the ticket was reserved for Castro, but there are doubts about the former governor’s maintenance in that post. In a judgment last week, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) made Castro ineligible for eight years, by convicting him of abuse of political and economic power in the 2022 election, involving irregular hiring made by the Ceperj foundation.
Castro still intends to launch his sub judice candidacy for the Senate, while trying to reverse the effects of the conviction through appeals to the TSE, but the PL has been signaling that it does not intend to run the risk of having its votes annulled due to ineligibility. In this scenario, there is the possibility that the former governor will be replaced by another name on the ticket.
