Discussion between Nunes and Salles in PL act with Bolsonaro anticipates dispute to 2024 – 05/07/2023 – Power

Potential opponents in the dispute for the Prefecture of São Paulo, Mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB) and Federal Deputy Ricardo Salles (PL) discussed at a PL Mulher event this Saturday (6). Both shared the stage in the act that was attended by Jair and Michelle Bolsonaro.

Parliamentarians who witnessed the scene claim that, when heading to the stage, the namesakes met in the corridor that gave access to the place and that Nunes questioned Salles about his public criticism of the mayor.

The deputy has already stated that Nunes is an “icon of the center” and that “the center is a metastasis, which is always there, stealing and rigging”. Salles has also said that the city hall has thieves and is home to mafias such as garbage and asphalt.

Nunes then asked Salles if the congressman was badmouthing him. The mayor would have said that the parliamentarian knew he was correct and hardworking.

Salles then responded that he was just exposing issues at City Hall, which he considers to be riddled with corruption. Nunes later went to the stage and stayed there the whole time. Salles rose only a while later.

While some witnesses described the episode as a fight, others played it down, saying it was just a conversation. Nunes and Salles were approached by the report, but declined to comment.

More than a year before the municipal election, Nunes and Salles are in a parallel dispute for the support of Bolsonaro and the PL, the host party for this Saturday’s event.

The party is part of the mayor’s support base and, according to Nunes’s allies, the party’s president, Valdemar da Costa Neto, is in favor of supporting his re-election.

The argument of the wing of the root PL that supports the emedebista and has positions distributed in the management is that he is more electorally viable than Salles, after all he dominates the city hall machine.

Salles, however, seeks to make his candidacy for the PL viable and has the support of the Bolsonarist wing of the party, including the former president.

As the Panel column of the SheetBolsonaro told a close circle of allies, on Monday (1st), that he does not accept supporting Nunes in the São Paulo election.

According to reports, Bolsonaro said that he does not accept the name of the emedebist because he did not receive his support in the dispute with Lula (PT) in 2022 and because he has already declared that he is not from the right, but from the center.

At the end of March, Bolsonaro said that he preferred Salles to Eduardo Bolsonaro (PL-SP) in the dispute, because, according to him, the former minister is more experienced and knows much more than his son.

Before the PL Mulher act, Nunes had lunch with Valdemar and Bolsonaro. According to members of the PL, the mayor sought to clarify the criticisms he made of the former president in relation to the anti-vaccination stance in his interview with Rede TV!.