Free campaign advertising on TV and radio began this Friday with the two main candidates for governor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes (PSD) and Douglas Ruas (PL), seeking to position themselves as alternatives to the administrations that have governed the state in recent years. Paes, the former mayor of Rio, has the most campaign time at 4 minutes and 50 seconds.
Eduardo Paes's main argument is to link Douglas Ruas to the continuity of Wilson Witzel and Cláudio Castro's administrations, which governed the state from 2019 until March of this year. The two central axes of his campaign are public security as a priority and criticism of politicians who held the state executive office during that period.
Douglas Ruas, president of the Rio de Janeiro State Legislative Assembly (Alerj), responds by associating Eduardo Paes with former leader Sérgio Cabral, who was arrested in anti-corruption operations. Ruas also intends to attack former Alerj president Rodrigo Bacellar, currently imprisoned in an investigation examining the relationship between politics and organized crime.
The electoral dispute occurs at a time of political changes in the state, following the administrations of Witzel and Castro, and both candidates seek to distance themselves from controversial figures from the recent past while trying to link their opponent to scandals or unpopular administrations.
