The PTB candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, Father Kelmonmade his debut in the presidential debate as an auxiliary line for the president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), who is running for re-election. Kelmon replaced Roberto Jefferson, of whom he was a candidate for vice. The former head of the ticket had his candidacy barred by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court).
Bolsonaro chose Kelmon to ask his 1st question in this Saturday’s debate (September 24, 2022) at the SBT. The president asked the petebista about the “friendship” of the former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (EN) –absent in the debate– with the leader of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega.
In a double, Kelmon agreed with the current president’s criticism of religious persecution in the Central American country. “This is a situation that we do not want in Brazil. Let’s keep an eye out”declared the candidate.
“We run the same risks as the people of Nicaragua, with fierce persecution of Christians. The Nicaraguan dictator is a friend of the Foro de São Paulo group”said Kelmon about the group of leftist parties in Latin America that became a topic in the 2018 debates with the then candidate Cape Daciolo.
At another point, Kelmon sided with Bolsonaro as the only right-wing candidate for the presidency. He said that before debuting in the debate, they were “5 against 1”referring to the other candidates as representatives of the left.
“Now it’s 5 against 2 because we are right-wing candidates”, declared. However, there were 6 candidates present for the debate on SBT.
According to the self-declared priest, the PTB is the “the only party that prides itself on being right-wing and conservative”.
Still in the ideological field, Kelmon invited voters to “Looking for candidates who defend […] life, God, country and family”. The motto has been coined by Bolsonaro since the 2018 campaign.
The PTB candidate also defended the Chief Executive from criticism from opponents in the debate. He stated that candidates for the Planalto monopolized the “attacks” to 2nd place in the voting intention polls. “We have all the candidates here attacking only one: the President of the Republic”declared.
Bolsonaro also chose Kelmon to answer in another block of the debate. He asked the priest his opinion on the politics of the “stay home” and the increase of Auxílio Brasil to R$ 600. Kelmon criticized the isolation during the covid-19 pandemic and praised the president on the economic measures in the period.
“My opinion is that you have helped this country a lot. And we’re seeing a massacre here, I’ve never seen it in my life. 5 parties that got together to beat the President of the Republic with fallacies, with lies, inventing”, said Kelmon
The president also used the PTB candidate as a ladder by targeting the female vote and the Northeast. He said that “took water” for the region and which values the “strong woman”. Kelmon again agreed and extolled the policies of the federal government. And he criticized opponents for not criticizing the PT.
“Hasn’t the President of the Republic done something good for Brazil? Do you only see evil, corruption? There were 13 or 14 years of PT government”he said.
Who is Father Kelmon?
Despite having “priest” in the urn’s name, Kelmon has no ties to the Catholic Church. he calls himself “orthodox priest” of a conservative Christian current. He is the leader of Meccla (Conservative Christian Movement in Latin America).
On his Instagram profile, Kelmon features a timeline with the title “who is Father Kelmon”. Here’s what the timeline says:
- born on October 21, 1976 in the city of Salvador;
- at age 20, he entered the Mater Ecclesiae seminary of the legionaries of Christ in São Paulo, building step by step his formation at the Santana and Santa Catarina seminary in Alexandria;
- in 2003, he fell in love with the Orthodox Church, where he followed a long path of studies, dedication to others and community work;
- in 2009, he began his missionary life; he then founded the orthodox Catholic association Theotokos in the city of São Paulo;
- in 2014, he was ordained a deacon of the Orthodox Church;
- in 2015, he was ordained a priest;
- in 2020, he received an invitation from Roberto Jefferson to reorganize the party’s youth and lead the MMCPTB (PTB’s Conservative Christian Movement);
- in 2021, he was elected by the Church’s Holy Synod as bishop; he founds Meccla.
Read more about the debate SBT:
REMEMBER HOW THE 1st DEBATE WAS
O 1st date among the presidential candidates was held on August 28, 2022, organized by a pool of media vehicles composed of TV Bandeirantes, TV Culture, UOL and Folha de S.Paulo.
Participating in the debate were: Jair Bolsonaro (PL), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), Ciro Gomes (PDT), Simone Tebet (MDB), Luiz Felipe d’Ávila (Novo) and Soraya Thronicke (União Brasil).
Here are some of the highlights of the 1st meeting:
- Bolsonaro X women – the women’s agenda you made a good impression after the president called journalist Vera Magalhães, who asked the Chief Executive about vaccines, to “Shame on Journalism”. He also said that the professional had some “passion for him”. Ciro, Tebet and Soraya came to Vera’s defense;
- “chutchuca” – when defending Tebet, Soraya Thronicke accused Bolsonaro to be “chutchuca with men” and “tiger with women”;
- Petrobras – in the 1st interaction between Bolsonaro and Lula, the current president accused the PT to leave a debt of R$ 900 billion in the state company; Lula reacted and said that the data cited by his opponent was “liar”;
- Supreme – without mentioning names of ministers, Bolsonaro declared what is there “judicial activism” in the performance of the STF;
- Brazil aid – Lula and Bolsonaro were accused lying about maintaining the R$ 600 benefit; both have already said they will keep the value;
- Janones X Salles – the deputy from Avante and the former Minister of the Environment discussed behind the scenes of the debate; the disagreement started after Salles reacted to a speech by Lula about deforestation.
PowerDate
Search PowerDate held from September 18 to 20, shows a picture of stability in voting intentions for the presidential succession with minimal variation in the last 7 days. According to the survey, in the 1st round, Lula has 44% and Bolsonaro, 37%.
The PT oscillated 1 percentage point up in comparison with the last week. It is 7 pp ahead of Bolsonaro, who registered stability in the same period.
The numbers reaffirm the tendency for the dispute to go to the 2nd round. In an eventual 2nd round, the PT candidate has 50% of voting intentions against 42% of the current president in a direct confrontation.
The survey was carried out by PowerDategroup company Power360Journalism, with its own resources. The results are published in an editorial partnership with the TV Cultura. Data were collected from September 18 to 20, 2022, through calls to cell phones and landlines. There were 3,500 interviews in 301 municipalities in the 27 units of the Federation. The margin of error is 2 percentage points. The confidence interval is 95%. The TSE registration is BR-00407/2022.
RESEARCH AGGREGATOR
O Power 360 maintains a collection with thousands of surveys with known methodologies and on which it was possible to verify the origin of the information. There have been studies carried out since the 2000 municipal elections. This is the largest and longest-running survey of electoral research available on the Brazilian internet.
The database is interactive and allows you to follow the progress of each candidate. Access the Research Aggregator clicking here.
Research information began to be compiled by the journalist Fernando RodriguesEditor-in-Chief of Power 360on its website, in the year 2000. To access the old page with the surveys, Click here.
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