Determined by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the retotalization of the votes obtained by Rodrigo Bacellar (União), former president of the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (Alerj) who was arrested again, will change the distribution of seats between the parties. Scheduled by the state’s Regional Electoral Court (TRE-RJ) for next Tuesday afternoon, the recount opens space for new names — among them, Comte Bittencourt (Citizenship), mentioned in internal projections.
The scenario contributes to further intensifying the political dispute for command of the House and for the so-called buffer mandate in the state government. Deputies are already redoing calculations and intensifying coordination in light of the possibility of reconfiguring the plenary.
The retotalization will begin with the annulment of the more than 97 thousand votes obtained by Bacellar in 2022, and will result in a new calculation of the electoral quotient. In other words, the total number of valid votes will be divided by the number of vacancies to be filled, says Fábio Luiz Gomes, vice-president of the advocacy committee in the Superior Courts and control bodies of the Instituto dos Advogados do Brasil (IAB).
— The situation of loss of mandate and revocation of diploma causes great social instability and uncertainty, necessitating the need to call a new election. However, in the Bacellar case, there is the peculiarity of the request made by the TSE to cancel the votes, which creates the need for a retotalization — says the expert.
As a result, the recalculation will impact the number of seats available for each of the parties and/or federations that have reached the electoral quotient or that compete, at the end of the process, for the remaining seats due to electoral surpluses.
In practice, in one of the scenarios considered by the deputies, Cidadania is expected to gain a seat, which will be occupied by former state deputy and former vice-mayor of Niterói Comte Bittencourt. Upon taking up the position, the House’s opposition expects, as it is a centrist party, that it will become an ally of the left and vote against the majority group, which supports Douglas Ruas (PL) in the election for president of the House.
Continues after advertising
— I’m going to wait for the votes to be totaled and, if I have to go back, I’ll come back, if not, I won’t come back. It is a question of being cautious at this moment and even of reasonableness – he said.
The PL would lose one of its seats due to the possibility of not reaching the electoral quotient, but it could gain a seat due to the electoral surplus, that is, its bench would not be changed. In this scenario, state deputy Renan Jordy (PL-RJ), a substitute who was cited as one of the possible parliamentarians who would be left out, tends to remain in office by occupying the vacancy that will be left by Ruas when he is a candidate for the buffer mandate.
The same tends to happen with state deputy Bruno Boaretto (PL), elected as a substitute who will be able to maintain the position when occupying the seat of Jair Bittencourt, recently appointed to command the Government Secretariat, before the departure of former governor Cláudio Castro (PL). União Brasil, in turn, would lose a seat due to Bacellar’s impeachment.
