Sobral, stronghold of the Gomes clan, has a campaign with threats – 09/28/2024 – Power

In Sobral, a city in the interior of Ceará considered a model for the country in literacy and the first years of primary education, the campaign for mayor is marked by violence and intimidation associated with criminal factions.

The only two candidates — Izolda Cela (PSB) and Oscar Rodrigues (União Brasil) — complain about not being able to enter certain neighborhoods after receiving messages from supposed faction intermediaries. With 203 thousand inhabitants, Sobral is the 38th most violent city in the country and the third in Ceará, according to the Violence Atlas 2024.

Izolda, former governor of the state (she was Camilo Santana’s deputy and took over for nine months when the current Minister of Education left office to run for the Senate) and former executive secretary of the MEC, received death threats over the internet. The police arrested four men in connection with the episode and with firecracker attacks targeting the candidate’s activists.

Veveu Arruda (PT), former mayor of Sobral and Izolda’s husband, was attacked, along with his brother Inácio de Carvalho (member of the national leadership of PC do B), during a campaign event on the outskirts of the city’s central market.

“It was a beautiful march, and in the end they did what they threatened. They released fireworks at people, three teachers and a child were injured, they suffered burns. My husband went to help someone who was being attacked and ended up being attacked too”, said Izolda the Sheet. “It wasn’t the population reacting to anything, right? It was a very deliberate and announced action.”

Oscar’s supporters and traders around the market associated the episode with street vendors resentful of Veveu for being expelled from the region when he was mayor (2011-2016).

Oscar’s campaign sent a letter to the police reporting similar incidents against the candidate — who claims he had to abort events in the district of Caioca and the neighborhood of Vila União. He says that his allies suffered two firecracker attacks.

The literal war is joined by another symbolic one: in the fiercest dispute in recent times, the Ferreira Gomes clan, which has ruled the city for almost 30 years, is at risk of being defenestrated — the latest survey in the city indicated the opposition’s advantage. The current mayor (in his second term) is Ivo Gomes, brother of Ciro, Cid and Lia, the other politicians in the family.

The group’s candidate, Izolda was the pivot of the rupture of the state alliance between Ciro’s PDT and PT — which also split the family. In 2022, the PT members (led by Camilo Santana) and Cid defended her running for government with the PDT; Ciro and another wing of the party chose Roberto Cláudio, and the PT launched its own candidate (Elmano de Freitas, who won). Cid, Lia and Ivo broke politically with Ciro and left the PDT for the PSB.

Despite the party split with his brothers, Ciro says he is on their side in Sobral. But he does not participate in the campaign. “I’ve never seen any manifestation from him in relation to here. And I respect the situation. There was a big aside at that moment, suddenly I was in the eye of the storm”, says Izolda. “I personally don’t have any trauma or resentment. I don’t cultivate it in my heart.”

It was exactly in Sobral — the birthplace of Belchior and Renato Aragão — that the recently dissolved union was born. In 1996, Cid Gomes, then in the PSDB, was elected mayor of the city, with PT member Edilson Aragão as vice president. The victory brought the family back to power — their father, José Euclides, and other ancestors had already administered the city — and inaugurated the alliance between them and the PT that would be successfully extended to the state level.

“Alternation of power is a prerequisite of democracy. Sobral is tired of this accommodation and lack of dialogue”, says Luciano Linhares, coordinator of Oscar’s campaign and former councilor who was once a member of the PSB and PSOL before joining the Union candidate. Brazil — a Bolsonarista. Oscar declined to give an interview.

In addition to the violence, both candidates each have their own pickles. On Izolda’s side, it’s the garbage tax, a charge instituted by ally Ivo Gomes and incorporated into the water bill, which caused expenses to explode, angering the population — who, if they didn’t pay, would also be left without water.

The report spoke to residents whose bills did not reach R$ 100 and who, with the fee, exceeded R$ 500. After the terrible repercussion and the possible electoral effect, Ivo apologized, fired the head of the water and sewage service, announced the separation of charges and is reviewing the amounts of the highest bills — in many cases reimbursing the consumer.

Izolda also complained. “The person can be on Bolsa Família, on the Cadastro Único, and if they have a slightly higher water consumption, the rate goes up. It oppressed a lot of people’s budgets. The rule ended up catching those who couldn’t.”

Oscar, in turn, is haunted by the accusation that he had fraudulently obtained medical certificates to retire due to disability — claiming to suffer from Alzheimer’s — as a professor at the State University of Vale do Acaraú and having received this benefit for years. In a statement, the institution informed that it had initiated an administrative procedure to investigate the complaint and ordered Oscar to carry out a new examination. “However, [ele] did not attend this call, which culminated in the suspension of his retirement payments.”

“There are only two options: either Oscar cheated on a certificate to keep getting paid without working or he really has Alzheimer’s and can’t be mayor of Sobral”, said state deputy Lia Gomes (PSB), sister of Cid, Ciro and Ivo, who filed a criminal report with the Public Prosecutor’s Office about the episode.

When contacted, Oscar did not respond about the case itself. His campaign released a statement stating: “We will not base our actions on responses to fake news from the opposing candidacy.”

Linhares, the coordinator of the opposition campaign, provokes Izolda (former Secretary of Education of Sobral and Ceará) and the Gomes about the city’s main showcase. “If it’s the best education in Brazil, why are there so many young people in factions, with no prospects for the future?”

Izolda responds: “The quality of the curriculum can and should improve, [visando] broader, more comprehensive training, increasingly linked to work and socio-emotional skills. We need to find ways to make more coordinated circuits at the end of their formation.”