After interrupting the judgment on the election for a buffer mandate to the Rio government with a request for a review, minister Flávio Dino, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), intends to have a conversation with colleagues Cristiano Zanin and Luiz Fux, rapporteurs of the actions that deal with the issue, before returning the case to be discussed again.
According to reports obtained by GLOBO, the dialogue should take place after Dino’s conclusion of the analysis of the trial ruling at the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) that led to the conviction of the now former governor Cláudio Castro (PL).
Behind the scenes, Dino has reported that the trial gained a high degree of complexity due to changes in position throughout the analysis at the TSE and records considered contradictory regarding the scope of the decision. To interlocutors, he also indicated that, after completing the reading of the ruling, he intends to seek out Fux and Zanin to discuss the case before releasing the case for trial.
The STF judgment on the format of the elections for the buffer mandate has been suspended since Dino’s request for review, presented on April 9th. The expectation is that the minister will prepare an extensive and detailed vote given the controversies accumulated in the process. Furthermore, it is expected that the minister will take a few days before completing his vote. Interlocutors claim that he has highlighted the additional difficulty brought by the TSE’s own ruling, published about a month after the trial, last Thursday night.
The analysis of the ruling takes place in the midst of an environment of internal division in the Supreme Court and should reignite the tension already observed between some of the ministers and the TSE. One wing of the Court understands that the document did not conclusively address issues essential to the definition of the case, which could expand the scope for interpretation in the ongoing trial.
The central point of the dispute in the STF is to define whether the vacancy in the Rio government arises from an electoral cause, a hypothesis that would lead to the call for a direct election, or from a common resignation, a situation in which it would be up to the state to establish the succession model. The Legislative Assembly of Rio (Alerj) approved a law providing for indirect elections, but the rule is suspended by preliminary decision and is also analyzed by the STF.
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So far, there are four votes in favor of the indirect election — from Fux, Cármen Lúcia, André Mendonça and Nunes Marques — and one for the direct election, from Zanin. In previous demonstrations, Dino, Gilmar Mendes and Alexandre de Moraes had already signaled their understanding of the prevalence of the popular vote.
Behind the scenes, the prior dialogue between Dino and the rapporteurs is seen as a move to reduce uncertainties before the resumption of the trial. Still, there is no guarantee of convergence, and the scenario of a possible tie keeps the focus on Dias Toffoli’s vote and on the role of the President of the Court, Edson Fachin, who may be called upon to break the tie.
TSE ruling
In the document about the trial that made Cláudio Castro ineligible, the TSE states that his mandate was not revoked as he resigned before the analysis was completed in the Court. The ruling brings together the main points of the trial and the conclusions reached by the panel based on the votes of the seven members.
The text states that five ministers considered that the hypothesis of revocation, requested by the Public Electoral Ministry, was jeopardized by Castro’s early departure: Cármen Lúcia, president of the Court; Antônio Carlos Ferreira, case rapporteur; Estela Aranha; André Mendonça; and Floriano de Azevedo Marques.
Furthermore, the document informs that Castro’s diploma was not revoked, as only three ministers voted to revoke the diploma, without forming a majority: Isabel Gallotti, Estela Aranha and Floriano Azevedo Marques. Opponents saw the former governor’s departure on the eve of the resumption of the trial as a maneuver precisely to avoid the formal declaration of the loss of office. The PSD, the party of former Rio mayor Eduardo Paes, used this argument to call the STF and defend that the election be direct, that is, with the popular vote.
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The published text says that the TSE decided to “recognize the harmfulness of the revocation of the mandates of Cláudio Bomfim de Castro e Silva and Thiago Pampolha Gonçalves, due to their resignations, without forming a majority to revoke their diplomas”.
The format of the election and the debate on whether or not there was a circumvention of the electoral law to avoid revocation were left out of the ruling, as the two topics were not discussed in the trial. Castro was convicted by 5 to 2 for abuse of political and economic power in the 2022 campaign and will be ineligible until 2030, that is, eight years from the date on which the electoral crime was committed.
