02/09/2024 – 16:37
The mayor of São Paulo and candidate for reelection, Ricardo Nunes (MDB), fired the deputy mayor of Lapa, Luiz Carlos Smith Pepe. The dismissal was published in the city’s Official Gazette and, according to Nunes, the reason was that Pepe was an ally of councilman Rubinho Nunes (União Brasil), who left the MDB candidate’s campaign to support Pablo Marçal (PRTB).
“It has a relationship [a demissão do Pepe com o desembarque do Rubinho Nunes da campanha]although I have no objections to the deputy mayor himself, he is a deputy mayor that I like a lot, I have a lot of sympathy for him. But it is a team issue. If you have this contamination of a traitor, of a person without character, without personality, like Rubinho Nunes, we need to reestablish our relations regarding his participation in the government”, said the mayor, in an interview with CBN radio this Monday, the 2nd.
Pepe was being investigated by the Municipal Comptroller General’s Office (CGM) for carrying out seizures outside his area of operation. The complaint was revealed in July, in a report by G1 and SP2, from TV Globo. Ana Carolina Nunes Lafemina, deputy secretary of the Municipal Secretariat of Subprefectures, will take over the Lapa subprefecture in his place.
Pepe’s resignation came after Rubinho Nunes, a former member of the Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL), abandoned the current mayor’s campaign. The councilman, a member of União Brasil, a party that is part of the MDB coalition, announced his decision in a video alongside Pablo Marçal posted on social media.
“Marçal is currently being persecuted by the system, he defends the same causes as me and faces the same enemies as me. I have a strong political and ideological identification with him,” Rubinho told Estadão. “I think Ricardo is a nice guy, a great person. But he is surrounded by many PSDB supporters. This ends up making the administration excessively PSDB-oriented, which I really dislike. São Paulo needs a management shakeup,” he said.
In an interview with Rádio Eldorado on Monday, the 2nd, the mayor of São Paulo downplayed the councilman’s departure. “It’s something so irrelevant,” said the MDB candidate. “We’ve already had some differences of opinion,” said the mayor, emphasizing his criticism of a bill proposed by Rubinho that would impose a fine of R$17,000 on anyone who donates food to homeless people. “He thinks very differently from me, I think he thinks very much like Pablo. He really has to be there, his place is there, with the bad people.”
About Pepe’s dismissal, Rubinho Nunes told State which “only shows that Ricardo [Nunes] is more concerned with revenge and his personal project than with managing São Paulo.”
When contacted, Pepe had not yet responded to the report by the time this text was published.
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