“The infiltration of organized crime into [Alerj] it’s not fiction”, according to Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court. His colleague Gilmar Mendes, dean of the court, said he had heard from the director of the Federal Police that “32 or 34 parliamentarians in the Assembly received allowances from gambling”.
Political opponent of the group currently in charge of the Rio de Janeiro Legislature, which, “if the Assembly had to indicate [o governador do RJ]a militiaman would come.”
At the center of the latest political scandals that led the STF to keep the judge as interim governor – instead of the president of the state Legislature, (PL), as determined by the Constitution –, Alerj is a kind of CBF of politics: just like in the Brazilian Football Confederation, almost all of its most recent directors were removed and/or arrested after allegations of various misdeeds.
Before Ruas, of the five presidents elected by state deputies to preside over the House this century -Sérgio Cabral (PSDB/PMDB), Jorge Picciani (PMDB), Paulo Melo (PMDB), André Ceciliano (PT) and Rodrigo Bacellar (União Brasil)–, only Ceciliano was not arrested.
One of the pivots of the current crisis, decreed by Moraes as part of Operation Unha e Carne, in which the deputy is accused of leaking data from an operation against Comando Vermelho. In 2025, he was unanimously re-elected president of Alerj – never before had the 70 deputies anointed a colleague.
He exerted great influence on the government of Cláudio Castro (PL). In March, both were convicted by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) for abuse of political and economic power – Bacellar had his mandate revoked.
In addition to the previous president, in recent months two other members of Alerj were arrested on suspicion of corruption and association with drug trafficking, and (Avante).
Regarding Gilmar’s speech, Alerj said in a statement that it “does not recognize any relationship with criminal misdemeanor, as well as any investigation in this regard related to the current legislature” and that it “acts with austerity and commitment to the people of Rio de Janeiro”.
any attempt to generalize or criminalize the Rio de Janeiro Parliament and its representatives elected by the people of Rio de Janeiro is unacceptable”.
Created in its current format in 1975, with the merger of the Legislatures of the state of Guanabara (created in 1960 when Rio ceased to be the federal capital) and the former state of Rio de Janeiro, based in Niterói, Alerj originally operated in Palácio Tiradentes, a listed building in the center of Rio that has just turned one hundred years old and remains its historic headquarters.
In 2021, the deputies moved to , also in the center, known as Banerjão, as it was the headquarters of the extinct Banerj bank. He was soon nicknamed Alerjão.
The big scandals started at the old headquarters. In 2017, he arrested the then president of Alerj, Jorge Picciani, former president Paulo Melo and former inspector Edson Albertassi and disrupted corruption schemes involving a construction company and bus companies.
In 2018, in the –development of Lava Jato in Rio– another seven deputies ended up arrested, and Picciani, Melo and Albertassi were the target of new preventive arrest warrants. The MPF and PF investigated a scheme in which deputies received allowances to vote in favor of the interests of the Sérgio Cabral government.
Alerj would also make the news when Flávio Bolsonaro, state deputy in the House from 2003 to 2018 and now a pre-candidate for president for the PL, left RJ on charges of collecting part of his former employees’ salaries for his own benefit, a case of embezzlement known as “rachadinha”.
The TJ-RJ accepted a request from Flávio’s defense questioning the jurisdiction of the lower court to judge the case, and the STF that supported the complaint, stating that they were obtained irregularly.
The transfer of headquarters to “Alerjão” in 2021 concentrated the House’s bureaucracy in a single building, previously spread across three. The retrofit gave a cold, impersonal and aseptic, almost hospital-like tone to the floors where the offices are located. Another difference was in the public gallery: the current one does not have chairs or bleachers, as in Tiradentes, and from it you have a partial view of the plenary, isolated by glass.
The ordinary session of May 12th, accompanied by Sheetwas conducted by Douglas Ruas. Projects such as the one that establishes the mandatory installation of gender-neutral bathrooms and changing rooms in public and private places for the exclusive use of trans people (by Congresswoman India Armelau, from PL) and another to regulate the operation of artificial tanning establishments in the state (by Carlinhos BNH, from PP) were debated.
After 1h22min of the session, Ruas handed the table over to deputy Célia Jordão (PSD) and left the plenary. Everyone did the same, and deputy Luiz Paulo (PSD) went to the stand to speak in the so-called final session.
He spoke for 12 minutes to an empty auditorium. Every now and then Luiz Paulo would address the president of the session, but sometimes Célia Jordão would be reading. Without missing a beat – especially because TV Alerj filmed everything, and in the era of cuts, recordings like this are gold –, he argued that civil service is not the cause of the state deficit, but the waste of resources and crimes against the treasury.
As shown, Alerj is one of the Legislative Assemblies in the country that surpasses the relationship between deputies and commissioned employees of the Chamber of Deputies, in Brasília. With an annual budget of R$1.6 billion and 5,277 commissioners (national runner-up in absolute numbers, behind only Goiás), the Rio Legislature has 75.4 of these employees per deputy.
Without hiding the problems with colleagues, Luiz Paulo, 80 – at the end of his sixth consecutive term and pre-candidate for re-election –, countered Gilmar Mendes’ phrase. “It’s not possible. Other corruption things are possible, but I’m [do bicho] no.”
Since the rise of Bolsonarism, Alerj’s agenda has been dominated by representatives of the radical right allied to what could be called the Rio de Janeiro center. The election of Douglas Ruas – who received 44 votes, against 25 absences and one abstention – gives an even generous measure of the size of the opposition, which is usually smaller.
Like so many others across the country, the Rio de Janeiro Legislature is full of figures outside of politics, exotic or strange, sometimes elected due to fame, kinship and, increasingly common, internet celebrities and sub-celebrities.
The gallery is made up of , who gained prominence by publicly exposing political differences with his most famous relative.
Samuel Malafaia is the less famous brother of pastor Silas Malafaia and, according to Alerj’s colleagues, a serene and elegant counterpoint to the most histrionic and warlike evangelical leader of Bolsonarism.
While the brothers are in prison, convicted of being the ones who ordered the murder of Marielle Franco, Pedro Brazão (União) continues to represent the clan in Alerj. Like Samuel Malafaia in relation to Silas, he is more thoughtful and kind than his imprisoned brothers (Domingos arrived in Alerj, in the middle of Alerj), but he maintains part of the family’s influence – until recently he controlled TV Alerj.
The digital influencer – member of a family of celebrities led by the pastor and cigarette factory owner Márcio Poncio, her father – was elected thanks to her engagement on the networks (on Instagram alone she has 3.4 million followers) and the support of Igreja da Nuvem, an online project created by the Poncios.
Giselle Monteiro (PL) owes her electoral success to the political estate of her brother, a former PM and YouTuber who was imprisoned for almost two and a half years and had his mandate as councilor revoked on suspicion of rape.
Renan Jordy (PL), in turn, rode the wave of his brother, federal deputy. Accused of assault more than once (one of them after being trapped in an elevator), he would break up with his most famous relative, who went to court to – which is actually a nickname.
Although Bacellar is out of the game, his riot police remain active in Alerj. It is made up of four PL deputies. The first is Rodrigo Amorim, who in 2018 was convicted of insulting trans councilor Benny Briolly in Rio.
The rest are Filippe Poubel, famous for surprise “inspections” in hospitals and health centers and sentenced for moral damages to compensate a doctor for one of these actions; Alexandre Knoploch, who already during a fight in Brasília and during a public hearing at Uerj; and Alan Lopes; project flag bearer.
As investigations and criticism from authorities suggest, Alerj goes far beyond anti-politics and the brutality of some members. “Alerj is the central office of organized crime, everything is controlled from there”, declares, a retired Civil Police delegate who advised deputies such as delegate Hélio Luz (PT, until 2002) and Marcelo Freixo (then in the PSOL, now in the PT), played a central role in the CPIs for the Militia (2008) and the Arms (2011) and worked on the institutional security of the House during the Ceciliano administration.
Outside of there, he was head of intelligence operations at the Security Secretariat and was in charge of specialized police stations, among other functions. “Half of my professional life was at Alerj. I respect democratic representation, but I cannot condone criminal practices,” says the delegate, for whom what is happening today in Rio is not a crisis: “That is our ethos.”
George says that, in addition to already known cases of deviations in the areas of education and health, control of the police (PM, Civil and Criminal) passes through the House. “Police chiefs are made there. The Treasury Department [oficialmente subordinada à Polícia Civil] It was always from Alerj, It could even work there.”
In recent days, a climate of tension has hovered over the House due to the developments in the investigations that led to the current crisis and the rumor that Bacellar was negotiating a plea bargain.
Prevented by the STF from taking over, harassed by staff and by the carelessness that the interim governor carried out during the Castro administration, of which he was secretary of Cities, Douglas Ruas sought to counterattack. One of the measures taken by the deputy – PL’s pre-candidate for the government of RJ – in the presidency of Alerj was to create a special commission to analyze the expenses of the three Powers and propose spending cuts.
Contacted by reporters since May 15, directly and via an advisor, Ruas initially said he would give an interview, but, after successive evasions, he stopped responding.
