Two days before taking a seat from the PSDB candidate, José Luiz Datena, the PRTB candidate for Mayor, Pablo Marçal, sent a message to the presenter saying he was “heartbroken” due to the differences between them.
“On Friday, Marçal sent a loving message to Datena, apologizing for the way he treated Datena in other episodes. Saying ‘look, I think I was hard on you and I’m heartbroken about it’”, said the political coordinator of Marçal’s campaign, Wilson Pedroso.
After receiving the message. Datena then sought out Pedroso himself to confirm whether the text was indeed from Marçal, which was confirmed. On the same day, according to Pedroso, he called the PSDB candidate for coffee, 48 hours before the TV Cultura debate, which ended up not happening.
“Datena called me. I was in the middle of a motorcade, I saw the ‘printed’ message and confirmed that the cell phone belonged to Marçal. And, at night, I returned to Datena more calmly. I have had a relationship with him for many years. Datena then told me that she didn’t want to focus on aggression. And I suggested having coffee with me so we could meet up again. He remembered that this could be seen as a debate and we left the coffee for later”, said Pedroso.
Datena said that “adviser Wilson” had contacted him, suggesting that Marçal’s campaign had approached him to arrange the debate, which Pedroso refuted.
“He was the one who called me to confirm Marçal’s message, but as I was in the middle of the motorcade, I got back to him later, more calmly, considering the long relationship, spanning years, that we have. I felt he was very fragile in this call,” he declared.
Datena’s campaign accuses Marçal of having implemented a planned strategy to unbalance him. The influencer’s team counters, saying that the PSDB candidate started the provocations.
Datena says she “would repeat the gesture”
. The candidate says he does not advocate the use of violence to resolve a conflict. “This is the rule and I have always respected it in my 67 years of life. Until yesterday”, begins the statement.
Datena says that it is difficult to obey this rule “when the limits of civility are broken and corrupted by an opponent”. “Pablo Marçal demonstrated, in every situation he had the opportunity, his lack of character. He also demonstrated that he is a threat to the city of São Paulo. He will be stopped from voting. But despite this, he also needed to be restrained with actions. That’s what I did,” he said.
The PSDB candidate claims that Marçal used the “language of marginalized people”, “hurt my honor and tarnished my family”. “I made a mistake, but I in no way regret it. I honestly would have preferred the episode not to have occurred. But, if the circumstances were the same, I would not fail to repeat the gesture, an extreme response to a history of attacks perpetrated on me and many others by my opponent”, he states.
Datena ends by saying that he will continue the race for mayor of São Paulo.
