Ex-Militant Concedes Loss in Election for Rio Mayor

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

Published: October 26, 2008

RIO DE JANEIRO — A Brazilian congressman who helped kidnap an American ambassador during Brazil’s military dictatorship came up short Sunday in his bid to be elected mayor of Rio.

The congressman, Fernando Gabeira, conceded defeat late Sunday to Eduardo Paes, a congressman who is allied with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president. With 99 percent of the votes counted, Mr. Paes had 51 percent of the vote to Mr. Gabeira’s 49 percent.

Mr. Gabeira, 67, was one of four men who kidnapped the ambassador, C. Burke Elbrick, in September 1969, holding him for four days before letting him go in return for the release of 15 leftist political prisoners.

Mr. Paes, 38, formerly served as an administrator of Jacarepaguá and of Barra da Tijuca, two neighborhoods of Rio. He was backed by Sérgio Cabral, the governor of Rio State. Mr. Gabeira had the support of many of the wealthy elite in Rio, which has struggled with persistently high crime and the steady loss of its industries to São Paulo. But Mr. Gabeira was unpopular with conservatives for his positions in favor of legalizing marijuana, abortion and gay marriage.

Mr. Paes tried to stress during the campaign that he would be a better administrator than Mr. Gabeira, and that he was the better choice to act as a bridge between the state and city governments.

Mr. Gabeira would have been the latest former leftist militant to gain a position of power in government in Brazil. Franklin Martins, Mr. da Silva’s press secretary, participated in the kidnapping with Mr. Gabeira, and he was part of the same Communist group, MR-8, which robbed banks and carried out assaults on the police and the military in its struggle against Brazil’s military regime. Dilma Rousseff, Mr. da Silva’s chief of staff, also served in the resistance and was captured by the government’s police force, and then was convicted, jailed and tortured in the early 1970s.

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