Violence Escalates before Brazil’s Municipal Elections: 82 Murdered Candidates or Militants

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Two candidates and three precinct detectives killed, a city councilor shot, four politically motivated crimes within a month. This is only the recent balance of escalating political violence in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro during the election.

In early October, Mauro Miranda, a PTC (Christian Labor Party) candidate for Nova Iguaçu City Council, was executed in a bakery. Ten days later, in the same city, DEM (Democrats) candidate Domingos Rocha Cabral, known as Domingão, was murdered outside a bar. At the end of the month, it was the turn of Renata Castro, a candidate for city councilor in Magé to be killed with 14 shots when leaving her home.

And last Tuesday, one of the 15 shots fired toward the car of the Rio de Janeiro city councilor Zico Bacana (Podemos) struck him in the head. And Rio de Janeiro is far from being an exception.

On Monday, Ricardo de Moura (PL – Liberal Party), a candidate for city council in Guarulhos, in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, was attacked while chatting with voters during a live stream. The broadcast captured the exact moment he was gunned down by two shots, which hit the candidate’s arm and right leg, according to police.

Moura survived what her fellow state deputy, Adriana Afonso, described as “attempted murder”. The shooter has not yet been identified. Last weekend, at least six occurrences of attacks or attempted murders against candidates were recorded throughout the country, according to the monitoring of the Study Center on Security and Citizenship (CESeC).

The events are a portrait of the political violence that continues to plague municipal elections in Brazil. This year alone, 82 militants and candidates have been murdered, according to a survey by Pablo Nunes, the CESeC coordinator. In addition to the deaths, the study also mapped 170 attacks between January and October.

“The degree of violence against people who are killed for defending their ideas is dramatic. The imminence of the elections has increased the number of cases since July, but the first months of 2020 had already been very violent,” says the political scientist. In 2016, according to a report in the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo, 100 people were killed throughout the election year.

The first homicide recorded in the monitoring, the execution of Mayor João Schwambach (MDB – Brazilian Democratic Movement), on January 9th, shocked the population of Imbuia, in the interior of Santa Catarina state. He was killed by two shots near the City Hall. The shots came from the gun of his driver José Cardoso, who killed himself after the crime. The police closed the investigation without unveiling what prompted the murder. So far, the month with the highest record of political violence was September, which marked the beginning of the electoral campaign, with 13 recorded homicides.

The state with the second-highest number of deaths (eight), Rio de Janeiro is experiencing a surge in electoral disputes in areas controlled by militias, notably in the Baixada Fluminense suburbs north and west of the city of Rio de Janeiro, where nine politicians were assassinated in 2016, the year of the last municipal election.

In recent cases, police are investigating potential links between the victims and paramilitary groups. Domingão, of the DEM, had been arrested in July, along with his brother, who is a State Police officer, on suspicion of leading a militia in Nova Iguaçu. Mauro Miranda had in his records a conviction for illegal possession of a firearm. As a result of the murders in the city, the Civil Police set up a task force to fight organized crime in the Baixada cities. “The goal is to stifle the militia and allow a clean election, with candidates circulating and the people voting freely,” explained Secretary Allan Turnowski.

In the first task force operation in mid-October, 12 suspected militia members were killed. The operation is coordinated by delegate Giniton Lages, who is responsible for arresting the alleged assassins of city councilor Marielle Franco (PSOL – Socialism and Liberty Party) and her driver Anderson Gomes.

Over two years after the crime, the authorities have still not been able to identify the people behind the crime. The police actions failed to prevent the assassination of Renata Castro, a precinct detective connected to a traditional political clan in the city, the Cozzolino family (PP – Progressives), who was campaigning for Pablo Vasconcelos (PSL – Social Liberal Party), a candidate for city council.

In the same week she was executed, she had denounced on social media and to the Federal Police that she was being threatened by city councilors Clevinho Vidal (PCdoB – Communist party of Brazil) and Felipe da Gráfica (PTB – Brazilian Labor Party) – they deny making threats. In August, the pre-candidate to city council Tia Sandra (PSB – Brazilian Socialist Party) was killed by drug traffickers in the municipality.

“Politics is contaminated by violence and organized crime, as is the case in Rio de Janeiro, with the militias phenomenon,” notes Renato Sérgio de Lima, director president of the Brazilian Public Safety Forum, who sees the need to regulate the candidacies of police and security force officials, in greater proportion in right-wing parties.

“It is legitimate for police officers to run and try to represent their fellow officers. The point of tension is the corrupt party that wants to appropriate the state for criminal interests. When the right of a police officer to be a candidate is not regulated, a toxic environment is created in which the interest of representing a group of workers and militia behavior eventually intermingle.”

Family and militia ties

Earlier this month, city councilor Zico Bacana survived a shooting attack that killed two of his supporters and wounded him in the head during a campaign event in the west side of Rio. In 2008, he was mentioned by the Militia CPI (Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry) as the head of a paramilitary faction in the region. The ex-police officer has always denied the charges and was never indicted.

After surviving the attack, the deputy said he was the victim of a “cowardly assassination attempt,” but he is willing to resume the election campaign as soon as he recovers from his injury. “They want to stop democracy and my work as a representative of the people, but they will not succeed. Soon I’ll be back on the streets,” he said in a video released by his campaign committee.

The next day, another attack on a candidate for the city council, this time in the north zone. Simone Sartório (Patriots) was ambushed and her car was shot, but she was not injured.

In Paraty, the PT (Workers’ Party) candidate for the city assembly, Valmir Tenório, did not have the same fate as Bacana and Sartório. He was murdered last Wednesday afternoon. Police are investigating the three suspects’ alleged involvement in drug trafficking.

“Violence in municipal elections is a problem that threatens democracy nationwide and now strikes Paraty once again,” the PT-led Working for the Future coalition said in a statement, which called for a rigorous investigation into the assassination and reinforcement of policing until the election.

In Minas Gerais State, tied with Rio de Janeiro State for second place among the states with the highest number of homicides of politicians in 2020, the execution in broad daylight of the candidate for city council Cássio Remis (PSDB – Brazilian Social Democratic Party), in Patrocínio, in the Upper Paranaíba region of the state, gained national repercussion because it was also reported live during a stream by the victim himself.

The perpetrator of the five shots was ex-secretary of Works Jorge Marra, brother of the current city mayor. He has been in jail since late September and was ultimately indicted for murder, illegal possession of a weapon and theft, due to his grabbing of Remis’ cell phone. However, the Civil Police ruled out classifying the case as a political crime. “Although some politicians have tried to influence us [during the investigations], our actions are independent,” said regional delegate Valter André.

Pernambuco State holds the record for politically motivated murders. There have been 13 deaths since January. Gameleira, with 30,000 inhabitants, had two of its 11 city councilors executed. The motivation for the crimes is still under investigation.

“It is the state that for a long time has held the record for attacks on politicians. In the cities of the interior, political rivalries are passed from father to son, and violence is reproduced across generations,” says Pablo Nunes. In Itambé, on the border with Paraíba, nicknamed the “Frontier of Fear,” entrepreneur Adson Mattos was murdered for denouncing and criticizing politicians in the region in August, a decade after the execution of his cousin Manoel Mattos (PT), who was a city councilor and a human rights activist.

For Renato Sérgio de Lima, the warlike atmosphere of division in the national political scene recalls recent conflicts on the eve of the U.S. election and favors the brutalization of regional clashes. “Brazil has always had a history of resolving its electoral disputes violently. Therefore, political violence is nothing new,” says the researcher. “Currently, we are mimicking what happens in the United States. A polarization so great in society that makes people feel empowered to eliminate the enemy. The trivialization of hate speech leads to politics continuing to claim its victims.”

Source: El País