This is not the way you would expect a politician to wash away years of public service.
Shocking CCTV footage revealed the moment an aide to outgoing councilor Janaína Lima removed a toilet and two sinks from her city council office in São Paulo.
The lawmaker’s aide could be seen making two trips to remove a toilet and a large sink.
He was later seen with a grin as he carried a smaller sink with his hands.
Lima also instructed her staffer to remove the shower from her room after bitterly losing her election.
The 41-year-old ran under the Brazilian Democratic Movement ticket and lost to Adrilles Jorge of the Brazilian Labor Party in the 2024 elections by polling 12,215 votes.
In a statement to Brazilian news channel G1, Lima said the office did not have a bathroom after she was elected to the city council seat under the New Party in 2021 and that she had personally paid to have the office renovated.
“It is our duty to return the office as we received it, and to ensure that all public assets remain duly recorded and intact,” Lima said.
An employee of former councilor Janína Lima carries away a toilet from her office, which was also completely stripped of its shower and sinks
Former São Paulo city councilor Janaína Lima told Brazilian news channel G1 that she paid to renovate her office after noticing it had no bathroom and that she had followed the city council’s rules to leave her old workplace as she who found.
‘That happened in accordance with the guidelines of the House itself, which stipulates that items that do not belong to the assets must be removed.’
Jorge told the newspaper that he first heard that his new office had been completely stripped out just hours after he was sworn in on Monday.
‘I visited the office and thought the architecture was beautiful. But she got it all out,” Jorge said.
‘They even took out the toilet and sink. She didn’t say (that she would take them out). And it’s something neither she would say nor I would ask.”
Jorge, a 50-year-old poet and journalist, teased that he and his associates might have to settle for public toilets.
Janaína Lima was not re-elected to the São Paulo City Council in 2024
Lima made headlines in November 2021 when the New Party canceled its membership after getting into an argument with fellow member Cris Monteiro in one of the city council’s bathrooms.
The pair argued during the time allotted to them to address councilors during a vote on pension reform and took their disagreements to the bathroom.
Both women were suspended for 60 days.