In 2024, long before it came to light that million-dollar operations were suspected at Banco Master, state deputy Luiz Paulo Corrêa da Rocha (PSD) reported to the TCE-RJ (Rio de Janeiro State Audit Court) the strangeness of these applications. He even published the complaint on his social networks.
Messages found on the cell phone of the PF, the national president of the PSD, Gilberto Kassab, asking him to remove a video by Luiz Paulo on the topic from the air. The video is still online.
Amid yet another wave of investigations and arrests (Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro) at the center of the institutional crisis in the state, Luiz Paulo says he finds it unfair that the Rio de Janeiro Legislature has become the Geni of national politics – the one in Chico Buarque’s song where everyone throws stones.
“It’s the ugly duckling, it takes beatings from everyone. But, like all Powers, Parliament has positive and negative sides. It bothers the stigma created by generalization. There is no corruption that doesn’t go through the Executive. The STF, in turn, was important on the 8th of January and in the defense of democracy, but there is a lot that I don’t agree with [no tribunal]”, these.
When asked why so many Alerj presidents and deputies were arrested, he resorts to a concept from political theory, that of the “power framework”: roughly speaking, it is an interpretative guideline that is not in the laws, but organizes the perception of reality; a set of rules of the game that defines who is in charge, how they are in charge and what does not even come into discussion. “Why do governors try to elect the president of Alerj? I’ve never seen one without the governor’s blessing. It’s the wrong power framework.”
For Luiz Paulo, a change would only be possible with institutional rearrangement and changes in the power framework, to serve those who are outside the rules of the game. He argues, for example, that the basis of public service should be the civil servant, not the commissioned employee, and attributes the increase in Alerj’s structure to the rachadinhas scheme, which according to him began during Jorge Picciani’s administration. “The number of positions was increased without increasing spending.”
As shown, Alerj is one of the Assemblies in the country that surpasses the relationship between deputy and commissioner of the Chamber of Deputies, in Brasília. With 5,277 commissioners (national runner-up in absolute numbers, behind only Goiás), Alerj has 75.4 of these employees per deputy.
At 80 years old (“23.5 years of office always in opposition”), Luiz Paulo is an admitted workaholic and, due to his talkativeness and energy, he appears about ten years younger. At the end of his sixth consecutive term and pre-candidate for re-election, he is the Dean of Alerj. Carlos Minc (PSB) entered there earlier and had more mandates, but he is younger (74 years old) and graduated to be state secretary (2006-2008) and minister of the Environment (2008 to 2010, Lula 2 government).
An engineer specializing in urban planning and transport, Luiz Paulo was municipal and state secretary for the area and vice-governor (from 1995 to 1999, under Marcello Alencar, from the PSDB) before becoming a deputy. The posters of Getúlio Vargas and Leonel Brizola in his office indicate his labor extraction – he defines himself as “social democrat”.
He relates well with deputies of all stripes, and often coins catchphrases such as “corruption in expenditure is retail; in revenue, it is attacked” or “intelligent life exists between the extremes”.
As the Master/Rioprevidência episode demonstrates, his main focus as a parliamentarian is on the public budget, a topic he teaches at Elerj (RJ Legislative School).
Regarding the Master episode, his colleague Flávio Serafini (PSOL) – another rare deputy who was always in opposition to the last governments – gathered signatures to create a CPI in Alerj to investigate investments by Rioprevidência and Cedae in the bank. When nothing happened, Serafini asked the TJ-RJ to force the House to install the commission, but.
