Judgment of Action Against São Paulo’s Governor is Postponed

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The judgment of the action calling for dismissal and an eight-year ineligibility of the governor of São Paulo, João Doria, and the deputy governor, Rodrigo Garcia, has been postponed after judges hearing the case requested a review of the record during the São Paulo Regional Electoral Court (TRE-SP) session, on Tuesday, October 8th.

The Action for Judicial Electoral Investigation (AIJE), brought by the Regional Electoral Prosecutor’s Office of São Paulo (PRE-SP), accuses Doria of abuse of political power for misuse of institutional publicity during his term in the City of São Paulo, between January 2017 and April 2018, to promote his candidacy for governor in the 2018 elections.

Prior to the judges’ request for review, the TRE-SP rapporteur and vice-president, Waldir Sebastião de Nuevo Campos, had voted for the acquittal of Doria and Garcia, rejecting the charge that advertising expenses were used for the personal promotion of the then-mayor. “The deeds do not refer to the personal promotion of João Doria, but rather to administrative deeds,” Campos said.

According to the Office of the Prosecutor General, during the first semester of 2018, the expenses of the São Paulo City Hall for advertising (R$73,838,899.55; approximately US$19 million) were 122 percent higher than the average for the first semester of the previous three years (R$33,316,469.77).

Judge Campos deemed it inappropriate to compare the average expenses with the three previous years since Doria was in charge of the City Hall for only one year. “The comparison of the facts should be carried out in equal periods under the same administration”, argued Campos. “Advertising can be more or less used in different administrations,” he added.

The rapporteur of the action further argued that João Doria did not get a majority of votes for governor in 2018 in the city of São Paulo and, therefore, spending on advertising in the city would not have benefited him.

Doria’s defense attorney, Flavio Henrique Costa Pereira, who spoke before the rapporteur, also argued that the fact that the governor had obtained 41.9 percent of valid votes in the capital of São Paulo in the second round of elections in 2018, against Márcio França’s 58.1 percent, shows that the then-mayor has not benefited from spending on advertising.

Costa Pereira added that opinion polls carried out during the first half of 2018 pointed to an increase in the rejection of then-mayor João Doria and a worsening of his government’s image. “No impact was produced, if not, the surveys would have provided positive results,” said Pereira. “We have solid proof that regularity was not affected,” he added.

There is still no date for the trial to be resumed.

Source: Estadão Conteúdo