The president of Christian Democracy (DC), João Caldas, claimed to have been responsible for barring former Rio de Janeiro governor Wilson Witzel from joining the party. According to Caldas, the justification would be due to the excess of “crazy” in the acronym. He also said that Witzel — who is a pre-candidate for state government — “did everything” to join the DC. The party president made the statements in an interview with the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper.
— He did everything he could to join the party, called, held meetings. But I said no, there are already a lot of crazy people in the party — said Caldas.
In a note sent to GLOBO, the former governor stated that João Caldas’ speech is, “at the very least, curious and, in essence, false”, and states that exactly the opposite would have happened. According to him, Aldo Rebelo, pre-candidate for President for DC, is the one who sought him out. Witzel also said that, since 2022, he has been a member of the Democratic party (formerly the Brazilian Women’s Party) and that he remains a pre-candidate for the government of the state of Rio de Janeiro.
Still in February, Aldo Rebelo had confirmed to GLOBO that Wilson Witzel had agreed to join Christian Democracy and that it would become official on March 6.
Former federal judge Wilson Witzel was elected governor of Rio de Janeiro in 2018 with a speech of hard combat against corruption and violence, surfing the wave of Lava Jato, but he had a short and turbulent mandate: in 2020, he became the target of investigations by the Attorney General’s Office and the Federal Police on suspicion of corruption, money laundering and embezzlement in Health contracts during the Covid-19 pandemic; He ended up being removed from office by decision of the Superior Court of Justice and, in April 2021, he was impeached and definitively revoked by the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro, becoming the first governor of the state to lose his mandate through this process, in addition to being ineligible for five years.
