Nunes nods to the right, and Boulos says his rival doesn’t have the pulse to manage São Paulo

Ricardo Nunes (MDB) and Guilherme Boulos (PSOL) held a “tepid” debate on Friday night (25), two days before the vote that will elect the next mayor of São Paulo.

The mayor defended his administration and sold himself as a liberal, while the deputy tried to paint his rival as someone without a pulse and surrounded by suspicions of corruption. The meeting was promoted by TV Globo.

Pablo Marçal (PRTB), third place in the first round with 28% of the votes, was not even mentioned. Earlier, Boulos participated in a hearing promoted by the influencer in an attempt to win over part of Marçal’s electorate, who declared that he will annul the vote after Nunes refused the invitation to participate in the “live”.

Nunes began the debate by praising her partnership with the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), and exploring Boulos’ absence in a vote in the Chamber of Deputies on a bill to increase the sentence for criminals.

The mayor also said that his rival is in favor of the decriminalization of drugs, abortion and the demilitarization of the Military Police and that he says he changed his position for electoral convenience.

In a gesture to the right, he defended concessions and public-private partnerships, mentioned that he had reduced taxes on streaming applications and recalled the agreement with then-president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), his ally, to end the city hall’s debt to the Union.

Boulos positioned himself as the candidate for change and stated that his mission was to show São Paulo residents that Nunes was not a good mayor and that the emedebista lacked firmness at times when the population needed it most.

“You didn’t have the courage to confront Enel as you should have, you supported the privatization of Sabesp in exchange for electoral support (from Tarcísio) and we had the privatization of cemeteries”, he declared, adding that the costs of holding wakes and burials rose.

The PSOL candidate, who committed to being fiscally responsible, defended himself by saying that he supports the decriminalization of marijuana users, but that drug dealers are criminals and need to be targeted by the police. He then pressed Nunes to answer whether former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), who supports the mayor, got the management of the pandemic right. The emedebista initially hesitated, but later responded.

“São Paulo, under my administration, became the world vaccine capital. The vaccine you took was sent here by Bolsonaro. I am not a judge of the president,” said Nunes.

During the campaign, in a nod to Bolsonaro supporters, the mayor said he was against mandatory vaccination and considered the closure of businesses a mistake.

Candidates were able to move around the studio, which led Nunes to joke and say that Boulos was “invading” her space several times. Boulos, in turn, repeated that his opponent was nervous and stuttering.

Former mayor Marta Suplicy (PT), candidate for vice on Boulos’ ticket, was also mentioned in the debate. She was a secretary in the Nunes administration until the beginning of the year, but resigned to return to the PT, the party she left in 2015, and join the PSOL after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) agreed.

“You could ask her what it was like to lead Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment process,” replied Nunes, in a tone of irony, after being asked by Boulos about what he thought of the government led by the PT member in the capital of São Paulo.

Exchange of accusations and legal problems

If the first two blocks were about city issues, in the third, when the program was already over an hour long, the subject became the candidates’ relationship with the Court.

Boulos mentioned the “daycare mafia”, a scheme to divert public resources under the current municipal management. According to the psolista, the mayor received two checks in his account from an entity involved in the scheme.

“If the checks were for the service provided, why was it deposited into your personal account and not the company’s?”, asked Boulos.

Nunes responded that the Public Ministry investigated the case and that his tax secrecy had been broken. “Nothing was identified because I don’t owe anything. I have a clean life, I have never been charged or convicted. All receipts from my company were for services rendered”, continued the mayor.

As in the last debate, Nunes read a prosecutor’s statement and stated that Boulos evaded justice for six years to obtain the prescription of an action for damage to public property registered during a repossession operation in 2012.

The PSOL candidate maintained the line and cited Nunes’ complaint in an episode that occurred in 1997 in which the mayor fired shots into the air in front of a nightclub in Embu das Artes (SP). Boulos also accused the mayor of having Marcola’s former brother-in-law, leader of the First Command of the Capital (PCC), as chief of staff of the Secretariat of Urban Infrastructure and Works (Siurb).

“This guy entered the competition in 1988. He was managed by Erundina, Marta, Haddad, Bruno, Doria, Kassab, Serra. He’s a career employee. His sister, who I’ve never seen in my life, died 22 years ago, and she was this guy’s sister. He performs an administrative function”, replied Nunes.

In the end, both candidates defended the maintenance of public transport subsidies, differed on the size of the homeless population – a UFMG study shows that there are 80 thousand people in this situation, but Nunes says the number is smaller -, but agreed that “Pode Entrar”, the city hall’s housing program, is a good initiative.

(With Estadão Content)