The expectations for next Mayor elections here are incredibly high. Many stuff can happen. But I think that if Romário keeps being Senator, then maybe Freixo may win the election. I don't think PMDB has a good candidate to come after Eduardo Paes. It was already hard to substitute the governor, I don't think they have a really good one here for the capital.
I totally agree with you on IURD. IURD and the other evangelical thieves can't get more power, if they do we have no idea what to expect. Brainwashing institutions are the worst type.
Why do I hate our Republic so much? Well that's mostly because I blame it for the reduction of Brazil to a third world country in the XXth century. If Brazil's history is studied deeply, then you can come to the conclusion that the coup d'etat simply destroyed Brazil, and it only began to try to regain its strength in 1930, 40 years later.
- At this time we had some harsh inflation problems (you may remember the Encilhamento by our dear Ruy Barbosa);
- The industrial revolution plan discarded;
- The Navy decline;
- Our liberties minored;
- Mass slaughter of humble people promoted by the state (Canudos);
- The razing of Florianópolis (did you know why Florianópolis is named after our dictator Floriano Peixoto?) by a Presidential order;
- The universal suffrage used to create the messed up system we live until nowadays which puts São Paulo and Minas Gerais in a special position of biggest share of our total population, and at that time was far worse and more controlled;
- The state being used by an oligarchy to buy their wares so to control their price on the international market, removing important money to apply somewhere else;
And so many other things that I could extend myself just about the Sword Republic and the Oligarchic Republic. That doesn't mean that the Empire would have done better. But by seeing its development, this was expected.
What is a fact, is that the Republic downgraded Brazil. Brazil was a powerful country and a respected nation internationally for the second half of the XIXth century. We only lost this status on the XXth century.
What Dom Pedro II created here was something far more incredible then our teachers make us believe. There are several books which treat on the subject with more detail, and there you can see how developed we were, and how fast we did that for a colony to become its continent share master.
The US ruled North, we ruled South. But out rule was softer, because Dom Pedro II wished it to be like that. He disliked war and expansionism. Argentina was attacked 2 times by us, and in neither it lost any territory as war prize. Uruguay had its capital conquered by us sometimes, but since they called for independence in 1828, we never more wished to annex them back (on those successive conquests). When Paraguay finally lost the war, Dom Pedro II made it an order to prohibit any claim on Paraguay's territory from any of the 3 Alliance Countries, except those areas conquered by Paraguay from these 3 countries. And that's how Paraguay left the war, without its country being dismembered.
Also our economy was getting more and more advanced. We were introducing telephones and electricity far before any other latin american nation. We even bet some major european powers to it (France, Germany, Italy). Our Industrial Revolution had some problems in the decade of 1870, but it was again gaining power in the 1880s. We had almost the same rail coverage of the US at that time. We had internationally recognized writers, musicians, composers, painters.
What he created here was the right atmosphere to continue an incredible nation. His daughter seemed that would keep his path. She was already discussing the Agrarian Reformation and what to do with the freed captives that couldn't just be left to their own will on the streets and fields, with nothing to absorb them on society. Although very Catholic, it seemed that she would become a fair monarch, but that time never came. Instead of that, all what I said before took place. That's what the Republic has done to Brazil.
It hurt like hell but was fun 
