Tiririca is oblivious to the PL after opposing Bolsonarists – 07/21/2023 – Politics

While the PL struggles and threatens an irreconcilable division, one of its best-known names remains aloof and manifests itself only by posting jokes unrelated to politics on social media.

A veteran of the PL and a former electoral phenomenon of the party, federal deputy Tiririca has stayed away from the split in the party led by Bolsonarists and parliamentarians who are trying to approach the Lula (PT) government.

Tiririca voted with the minority of the party that supported the main projects of the PT government this year: the Tax Reform and the fiscal framework. The two proposals were strongly opposed by the PL wing aligned with former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Asked by Sheet through his advisory, Tiririca did not speak about his position in the PL crisis or respond to interview requests.

On his social networks, where he has 6 million followers on Instagram alone, he only posts humor videos, such as double meaning jokes, and promotes his activities as a comedian and artist. He does not talk about the progress of work in the Chamber or his day to day in Congress.

In the comments of more recent publications, he was attacked by Bolsonaro supporters because of the vote in favor of the reform.

The deputy has not appeared in the Chamber either. The Casa’s website informs that the last time he spoke in plenary was in 2018, when he briefly honored Circus Day.

Tiririca, who is from Ceará but has been elected by São Paulo, only integrates one commission in this legislature, that of Culture.

The deputy entered politics at the hands of the leader of the PL, Valdemar Costa Neto, at a time when the acronym was still an ally of the PT. He never switched parties.

In the midst of the PL split, Valdemar has been trying to appease the situation and says that there is freedom of opinion for each deputy to vote “for what is best” for those who elected him in agendas on the economy.

But he decided to expel a licensed parliamentarian, Yury do Paredão (CE), who appeared in a photo making the “L” gesture, in honor of Lula.

The crisis in the PL began even before the approval of the reform, at the beginning of the month, when Bolsonaro and the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), went to a party meeting in which the issue was discussed. The former president called for unity against the proposal, and participants booed when Tarcísio tried to defend it.

Days later, in a WhatsApp group, deputies exchanged offenses. Samuel Viana (MG), who voted in favor of the reform, called the behavior of colleagues “political cannibalism”. Carlos Jordy (RJ) said that those who do not accept his position “should leave the party”.

The episode raised doubts in the political environment about the possibility of the acronym becoming a “new PSL”, in reference to the party by which Bolsonaro was elected in 2018 and which experienced a major internal dispute in the first year of that government. The PSL ended up merging with the DEM to form the current União Brasil.

The PL bench is the largest in the Chamber, with 99 deputies. Twenty of them were in favor of the reform advocated by the Lula government.

On the bench, Tiririca, 58, is one of the oldest, in his fourth term.

The congressman’s vote, however, has plummeted since he was the most voted deputy in the country, 13 years ago, in one of the biggest polls in history. Of the 1.3 million votes in 2010, he obtained only 71,700 last year, managing to renew his term only thanks to his party’s quotient. He was the least voted elect in São Paulo – he agreed to give up his candidate number, used in previous campaigns, to his colleague Eduardo Bolsonaro.

In the first election, when he was the leader of the party’s votes, taking advantage of the fame of his career on TV, he was marked with the catchphrase presented at election time: “It doesn’t get worse than it is”.

Collaborated with Ana Gabriela Oliveira Lima