Sebastião de Araújo Melo (born 24 July 1958) is a Brazilian lawyer and politician. He has been the mayor of Porto Alegre since 2021.
A member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) since 1981, he had been a member of the city council from 2001 to 2012 and was the vice-mayor of the city during the mayorship of José Fortunati. In 2018, he was elected as a state deputy to the Legislative Assembly of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, a position he held until 2021.
Melo has run for mayor of Porto Alegre on three occasions. The first time, in 2016, he advanced to the second round, but was defeated by Nelson Marchezan Júnior. In 2020, he ran again and advanced once again to the second round, this time winning against Manuela d'Ávila. He would be reelected in 2024 against Maria do Rosário.
Early life and education Melo was born on 24 July 1958. He was born and raised in Piracanjuba, in the interior of the state of Goiás. He moved to Porto Alegre in February 1978. He is married to Valéria Leopoldino, with whom he has two children: Pablo Melo and João Arthur.
He graduated with a law degree from Unisinos.
Political career
City councilor in Porto Alegre (2001–2012) Melo became a city councilman in Porto Alegre for the first time in 2000, after he ran for four other positions, but was not elected. He was reelected in 2004 and 2008. In 2007, he was chosen to be the president of the Municipal Chamber of Porto Alegre, which he served as from 2008 to 2009.
Vice-mayor of Porto Alegre (2013–2016)
Melo was chosen by the state PMDB branch to run as the vice-mayoral pick of José Fortunati, a member of the Democratic Labour Party (PDT) and a mayoral candidate in Porto Alegre in 2012. With Fortunati's victory in the first round, Melo became vice-mayor on 1 January 2013. He became an honorary citizen of Porto Alegre in 2016, through a chamber initiative.
Candidacy for mayorship of Porto Alegre in 2016 In 2016, Melo was the candidate for the mayorship of PMDB, with state deputy Juliana Brizola, of the PDT, as the vice-mayoral candidate on the ticket. In the first round, they received 185,655 votes (25.93%). They came in second place behind Nelson Marchezan Júnior, and both qualified for the second round.
Melo received a diverse array of support, including from the PCdoB, the PMN, and from the PV's candidate, Marcelo Chiodo, even as his party supported Marchezan Júnior. He also positioned himself as more to the left, announcing his support for the fight against PEC 241, which established a ceiling for public spending for twenty years in Brazil, also going against the national position of his party.
Along with this, he affirmed his position against proposed laws inspired by Escola sem Partido, a conservative movement. Melo declared that he had an "identity of struggles" with the left, since he came from the "old MDB", as the party was the main political force against the military dictatorship. As a candidate, he had shown opposition against the privatization of public companies, such as DMAE, Procempa and Carris, and defended participatory budgeting.
After a tense campaign with constant trading of accusations between him and Marchezan Júnior, Melo was defeated in the second round, receiving 262,601 votos (39.50%).
After the election, on analyzing his defeat in an interview, Melo criticized the possibility that the MDB would become a part of his adversary's administration. In 2018, the party became a part of the Marchezan administration.
Campaign coordinator's death On 17 October 2016, during his campaign for the second round, the executive-coordinator of Melo's campaign, Plínio Zalewski, was found dead at the PMDB's base of operations in the Centro Histórico neighborhood. He was one of the campaign's principal spokespersons, and would be eulogized by Melo in the wake of his death. He was buried the following day. The main hypothesis is that he died by suicide with a cold weapon. At the place where he died, a suicide letter was found. The PMDB temporarily suspended the campaign for 24 hours.
State deputy (2019–2021) During the 2018 elections, Melo became a state deputy in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, receiving 34,881 votes.
Candidacy for mayor of Porto Alegre in 2020 In June 2020, Melo launched his pre-candidacy to run for mayor again, bolstered by a unanimous intra-party vote. His vice-mayoral candidate was Ricardo Gomes (DEM). Other members of his coalition included Cidadania, Solidariedade, Christian Democracy, and the PRTB. Despite the PSL, the former party of former president Jair Bolsonaro, officially supporting Marchezan Júnior's reelection campaign, some deputies from the party campaigned for Melo.
In the first round, he received 200,280 votes (31%), and advanced to the second round against Manuela d'Ávila, who received 187,262 (29%). Melo received support from Gustavo Paim (PP), Valter Nagelstein (PSD), João Derly (Republicanos), and from the PSDB.
Melo was elected in the second round with 370,550 votes, or 54.63% of the vote.
False information and fines During the elections, Jornal da Band released false polling that showed Melo in the lead against d'Ávila. Melo's campaign would later post their findings onto his Instagram account. Jornal da Band would later correct the polling data and Melo's campaign removed the post from social media. He was later condemned by electoral courts under the Brazilian Election Justice and was made to pay 106,000 reais for spreading false information. The judge that made the decision made the call to forward the case to the Federal Police for a criminal investigation. Melo and Gomes were fined again through the Election Justice for 41,900 reais for a series of irregularities in the campaign's finances, including the use of provisions to print religiously styled pamphlets that displayed him appearing alongside city council candidates from the PTB, a party that had not formally become a member of his coalition.
Allies of Melo also went around the city to spread rumors that if d'Ávila was elected, that she would close the city's churches and force people to eat dog meat.
Mayor of Porto Alegre (2020–present)
Transition and swearing-in ceremony Melo named Porto Alegre councilman and former mayor of Santa Maria, Cezar Schirmer, as his transition coordinator for the transition between the Marchezan government and his. In his inaugural speech on 1 January 2021, Melo affirmed that was necessary to "raise the optimism" for the city, as the city, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, had been going through rough times economically and socially.
Management of COVID-19 Pandemic
Distribution of inefficient medicine and harms to health One of the first acts under Melo's administration was to buy, among other medicines, azithromycin, ivermectin, and hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine – the latter of two which had been approved for the treatment of malaria – to supposedly combat COVID-19, despite multiple studies showing that all the medicines bought were ineffective towards treating the virus. The controversial decision was brought to suit by PSOL, which alleged that his administration was using public money to buy the medicine. The measure was also criticized by the council of the Faculty of Medicine at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul that asked for the immediate suspension of their distribution. Melo justified the purchase with the Ministry of Medicine by stating that people in the middle and upper-middle classes, and their friends, were taking the medicine. In total, the city government bought 239,000 reais worth of the medications, which they packaged into what they called the "COVID kit". Along with their ineffectiveness, it has been reported that the use of the medications combined over a long period and in high doses could lead to liver and renal damage, leading to the need for a liver transplant or possibly death.
In February, the Justice ministry prohibited, in a liminary decision, the city from distributing the kit. In the decision, the judge argued that the prohibition would be necessary while robust evidence, based on clinical studies and recognized by the scientific community, did not exist. Furthermore, the judge stated that the obligation of the public power, especially in health, must always be based in the preservation of the public good, and that it is not agreeable to any possibility that could create risks and turn back from the principle of precaution. The city government appealed the decision and had, by the start of March, again been denied the authorization to distribute the medicine that had already been deemed ineffective and harmful in the public sphere.
At the beginning of May, the base allied with Melo in the Municipal Chamber approved a proposal that permitted the free distribution of medication for the supposed treatment of COVID-19 that had been released by the health ministry. The project was seen as a way to attempt to circumvent the court's decision.
Public transit The city government relaxed regulations on the use of masks on city buses, a decision contested by specialists who stated that the policy would enable the spread of COVID-19. The other measures to loosen anti-pandemic protocols were criticized by health researchers for bringing risks to public health. Ahead of the acceleration of the number of people infected, the municipal government had to return to prohibiting passengers standing on public transit on 25 February, two days before the policy was set to begin. Meanwhile, the government was not able to adapt to the restriction, and users of public transit reported waiting more than an hour and a half at stops. The city government argued that there would be more than 400 professionals taken out of work because they had contracted COVID-19 or had a family member with the virus.
Education Even with the acceleration of the transmission of COVID-19 in the city and the increase in the occupation of beds at hospitals, Melo maintained the plan to recommence classes in municipal schools on 22 February 2021. He had only cancelled the beginning of the school year when the city had been put under the black flag category, the highest category for social distancing, due to a high risk of infections.
A part of the municipal schools would return to opening at the beginning of May, even if some of the teachers had not been vaccinated, in contrast to what had been happening in neighboring cities such as Esteio and São Leopoldo. Days before, the teachers had called for protests against returning to in-person classes during the middle of the pandemic without vaccination.
Collapse of the health system The resurgence of the pandemic began in February 2021, after a month of relative stability in the spread of the disease. In the beginning of February, the municipal secretary of health, Mauro Sparta, had declared that "the worst has already passed", even against warnings by specialists who said that this was not true and that there was an increase in Covid cases in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The municipality would maintain, for 45 days, softer measures to combat the spread of the virus compared to the previous administration. During the month of February, specialists and researchers had alerted e published their concerns on the risk of the municipal's health system collapsing.