From the editorial team
The split within Cidadania (ex-PPS) opened a new chapter: 67 of the 102 members of the National Directory and the presidents of 21 regional directories, led by former senator Cristovam Buarque, expressed their support for Count Bittencourt against the return of Roberto Freire to the command of the party.
The former communist leader withdrew from leadership of Cidadania in 2023 because he did not agree with the majority. The manifesto now published reaffirms the legitimacy of the election of Comte who succeeded him. But Freire, at age 83, took over command of Cidadania by court decision.
Last week, Judge Acácia Regina Soares de Sá, of Brasilia, rejected Freire’s reappointment because it was an internal matter of the political party, but Judge José Firmo Reis Soub, of the TJ-DFT, accepted on Sunday afternoon the appeal of Freire, who commanded Cidadania from 1991 to 2023.
The judge recognized the legal prerogative of the National Directorate to reconstitute the Executive at any time. The judge accepted this agreement and gave Freire up to 30 days to convene the meeting of the National Directory and elect the new Executive Committee. The imbroglio continues, because Comte appealed Soub’s injunction.
The manifesto says that “after two years of absence, Roberto Freire does not have the political support nor the legitimacy before the majority of the National Directory to resume the presidency of the party. We regret that he misled the judiciary, affecting the legitimately elected leadership, in contradiction with history, values and the democratic tradition that we have built collectively.”
And finally: “We note, with all due respect to the judiciary, that there is no urgency which justifies the measure adopted, since the contested fact dates back to 09/09/2023. The temporal distance itself clearly excludes any alleged danger in the delay.”
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