The rise and fall of Wilson Witzel, a governor emerged from the shadow of Bolsonaro

The governor of Rio de Janeiro, Wilson Witzel, during a press conference held on August 28 at the state government house.CARL DE SOUZA / AFP

The former judge and ex-infant of Marina Wilson Witzel, the current governor of Rio de Janeiro who has been suspended for 180 days, had a rise as meteoric as his fall, which culminated this Friday with a suspension for the alleged diversion of public funds in the pandemic management. The investigation even splashes on the first lady, Helena Witzel. "They suspend me without any proof," says the governed, and alleges that it is a political persecution for a personal matter with President Jair Bolsonaro. The history between the two shows that Witzel's inexperience, her ambition and her disloyalty towards whoever allowed her to use her name to win the elections created the storm.

Witzel, 51, married with 4 children, was an illustrious unknown to most Brazilians until shortly before the 2018 elections, and a rookie in politics. 20 days before those elections, he had 2% of the voting intentions. Witzel had never presented himself for a position, but he thought he had the right profile for the moment Brazil was experiencing in 2018, under the “from order to chaos” insignia that the anti-corruption operation Lava Jato had launched in 2014. And he mentioned Judge Sergio Moro and judge Marcelo Bretas as references.

Then-presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro was leading the polls and Witzel, who had already tried to forge other alliances, saw that there was the only chance to advance the dispute. It was Flávio Bolsonaro, candidate for senator, who articulated the alliance for Witzel to use his family's last name in the campaign, although his father did not publicly support the candidate for governor. Said and done: the former judge rose in the polls and reached the second round with 41% of the votes, double that of the second candidate, the former mayor of Rio de Janeiro Eduardo Paes.

The 'jairmanía'

It was the exact moment when Brazil was in full jairmania , with its aggressive speech against the Workers' Party (PT) and against crime. Those who aligned themselves with his anti-left discourse, in favor of arms and citizen security, had a great chance of winning. To become more known, Witzel would go to rallies of Bolsonaro's allies and pit bulls. On October 1, he was with former police officer Daniel Silveira and politician Rodrigo Amorim, candidates for federal and state deputy respectively, in the city of Petrópolis. The day before, Silveira and Amorim had broken "against socialist disorder" a replica of a street sign with the name of the murdered councilor Marielle Franco. Silveira presented Witzel as "our candidate for the Government of Rio."

Even without Bolsonaro's public backing, Witzel struggled to show intimacy with the then presidential candidate. On that occasion, he told the public that he had dined with Bolsonaro months before and had communicated his interest in becoming governor. "He told me: 'Look, I am missing a screw for wanting to be president of the Republic, but if you want to be governor of Rio, you are missing two," he recalled. He ended the conversation, according to him, by saying: “Candidate, I am a Marine. When they give me a mission, I do it, ”ostentatiously courting him to get his attention.

Evangelical support

The former judge got the vote, on the one hand, of the areas dominated by the militias - paramilitary mafias made up of ex-policemen - and, on the other, of the evangelicals, as candidate of the Christian Social Party (PSC), chaired by Pastor Everaldo, detained this Friday in the same operation that investigates the governor. When he won the elections on October 28, 2018, with almost 60% of the votes (4.67 million), Witzel reaffirmed his commitment to Bolsonarista ideals and his gratitude to Flávio Bolsonaro.

"I want to express my gratitude to a young senator who, in a symbolic gesture, even opposing 01 [his father, Jair Bolsonaro], held out his hand and said 'save Rio de Janeiro, Wilson,'" he said. The new governor did not fail to recognize the power of which he was also elected president and a new "symbol of the change that Brazil was longing for", but assured that he had not taken advantage of it. "I reached out my hand and was embraced by this renewal movement."

But Witzel believed too much in his own reading of the facts and considered himself, before his time, a possible candidate for the presidency. Thus he faced Bolsonaro, who had the public machinery in his favor and who continued to have great strength in the State: he had been elected seven times in a row federal deputy for Rio de Janeiro - the most voted in 2014 - a devastated State, with two jailed ex-governors: Sergio Cabral and Luiz Fernando Pezão.

Bolsonaro had already shown that he was keeping his eyes open in relation to last-minute allies who could become potential adversaries. He did not give his blessing to Witzel during the election campaign, just as he did not give it to the São Paulo candidate João Doria, who even created the Bolsodoria slogan to win.

"Aim for the head and shoot!"

Witzel spent the first months of government dazzled by the position, immersed in the character he sold during the campaign. In November, just after winning the election, he said the police would shoot anyone with a rifle down the street. “The right thing to do is to kill criminals who have rifles. Aim for the head and shoot! So as not to fail, ”he said. Last year, he showed that he was campaigning for 2022, with media police operations and establishing distances with Bolsonaro.

In August, for example, he went to the place where a man had been shot by snipers after holding bus passengers hostage for several hours. The governor arrived at the scene, on the Rio-Niterói bridge, by helicopter. He descended making celebratory gestures as if it were the final of a World Cup, oblivious to the tension of the passengers, the city and the family of the dead kidnapper. Two days later, a report in Época magazine recorded his criticism of the president. "Bolsonaro encourages the networks, but Brazil does not advance," he said. The distance grew day by day, as the president himself made clear.

In October, in a conversation about the investigation into the murder of councilor Marielle Franco and her driver, Anderson Silva, Witzel told Bolsonaro that the investigation had gone to the Supreme Court because the doorman of his urbanization had quoted his name. The matter had not yet reached the press and Witzel used the information for political purposes as a form of veiled pressure against the president. Bolsonaro was furious and accused Witzel of manipulating the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro. "Now that the elections are over, he has got it into his head that he wants to be president," he complained in one act. "But it has also gotten into his head that he wants to destroy the reputation of the Bolsonaro family," he accused. The goalkeeper ended up changing his version and life took its course.

The hit of the pandemic

But, since then, the two have fought each other and the distance widened during the covid-19 pandemic. Witzel joined other governors against Bolsonaro's anti-science stance and became the declared target of the president. He began to be more sensitive to the victims of Covid-19 and decreed the confinement, following the guidelines of the governors who represented the antithesis of the president.

Precisely during the management of the pandemic, in May, his Government was the target of Operation Placebo, which was investigating alleged diversions of money in contracts in the health area, including over-invoicing in the purchase of respirators. Justice suspects that there is a broad system of corruption that would also involve other areas of the administration and members of the Legislative and Judicial Power, and that it even splashes on the law firm of the first lady, Helena Witzel.

A contract for 554,000 reais ($ 103,000) passed through Helena Witzel's law firm between August last year and May of this year, and part of that money would have reached the governor's accounts. The information came to light after the former Secretary of Health of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Edmar Santos, signed an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office to reduce the sentence in exchange for information. Santos was involved in a plot that included no-bid contracts and promised and undelivered field hospitals for the management of the pandemic in the state.

Furious, the suspended governor denied all the charges, called his former secretary a "scoundrel", said the investigation was motivated by a "personal matter" and suggested that the possible influence of the Bolsonaro family in the accusations be investigated. "President Bolsonaro has already said that he wants Rio and has accused me of persecuting his family," he said. "Annoying when I have the militia detained?" He asked. He also hypothesized that his suspension will benefit the investigation into Senator Flávio Bolsonaro's alleged money diversion system. In December, he was to appoint the new Rio de Janeiro attorney general, who will take charge of the investigations that are putting increasing pressure on Flávio and the rest of the presidential family.

Witzel also accused Assistant District Attorney Lindora Araújo of persecuting other governors. In May, seven state governments were targeted by Operation Placebo. The day before the operation against Witzel, Bolsonarista deputy Carla Zambelli advanced in an interview that police operations would be carried out against the governors.

The former judge and former infant of Marina has to put up with Bolsonaro's rejoicing at his misfortune. As he left the Planalto Palace, the president mocked: "Rio is on fire"