Marcelo Crivella

In 2016, Marcelo Crivella won the election for Rio de Janeiro Mayor beating left-wing candidate Marcelo Freixo by a margin of approximately 20 percentage points. He is the first Pentecostal to govern a big Brazilian city.

Crivella reached the second round but was defeated on his running for Governor of Rio de Janeiro in 2014 by Luiz Fernando Pezão.

In 2008, he ran for mayor of the state capital, but came in 3rd place in the first round and was eliminated.

In 2006 Crivella ran for governor of Rio de Janeiro state. He ran for mayor of the capital in 2004 and 2008, but was unsuccessful in the three races. In 2004 he came in second in the disputed Rio de Janeiro municipal election, but he did not succeed to go to the second round against César Maia. He complained about negative coverage by the O Globo newspaper, which published several matters accusing him of fraud. It is owned by the second-largest media conglomerate in the country.

In 2006, he was gubernatorial candidate for the state of Rio de Janeiro, and was supported by the President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva. Polls leading up to the election said he was in second place. But, in the last week, he was superseded by Denise Frossard, the candidate of the PPS, and Crivella declined to participate in the runoff election.

In 2002, Crivella was elected as a federal Senator of Brazil from the state of Rio de Janeiro on the Liberal Party ticket. He has since helped found the Brazilian Republican Party (PRB) which has been allied with President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva.

Marcelo Crivella entered to the political life, having acquired great name recognition in the Rio de Janeiro area. He was a founder of the Brazilian Republican Party (PRB) and ran successfully for the position of Senator in the 2002 elections. Crivella was elected at the same time as Sergio Cabral Filho, who had a mandate for the period 2003–2011.

Crivella is a lively preacher, who attracts very large crowds; in his first major event, he spoke at the Nilson Gymnasium in xx, which holds 25,000 people. In 1999, he was part of an event at the Maracana sports stadium in Rio de Janeiro, where the overflow crowd was accommodated by getting to follow the action on huge screens.

By 1999, he had signed a contract with Sony Records for three disks, one to be in Spanish. His religious preaching is also conveyed by radio. Crivella has recorded as a singer, often using his own songs. He has been a major figure in gospel music in Brazil. He has released 14 disks, selling more than 5 million copies. His biggest success was his first album, O Mensageiro da Solidariedade (The Messenger of Solidarity). The albums were recorded by Line Records, where Crivella was considered the principal artist, and by Sony Music.

He has been criticized for his 1999 book Evangelizing Africa which found him saying that homosexuality was a "terrible evil," that Catholics were demonic, that African religions were based on "evil spirits," and that Hindus drank their children's blood. He has since tried to distance himself from the book, saying that it was the work of a young, immature missionary.

He took his family on a mission to Africa in 1992, where he achieved considerable success in planting new UCKG temples, although he spoke no African languages. He became pastor and bishop, having worked ten years diffusing the Universal Church in the African continent.

He is a bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God which is an international evangelical church founded by his uncle Edir Macedo in 1977.

Born in Rio de Janeiro to Catholic parents, Crivella attended the Methodist Church in his youth. His connection with his uncle, Edir Macedo, made them try an unsuccessful commercial partnership, before he was invited in 1977, to work in Macedo's newly founded Universal Church. Soon Crivella became a pastor.

Marcelo Bezerra Crivella (Portuguese pronunciation:  [maʁˈsɛlu biˈzeʁɐ kɾiˈvɛlɐ] ; born October 9, 1957) is a Brazilian Evangelical pastor, a gospel singer, doctor, and a politician. Since January 1, 2017, he has been Mayor of Rio de Janeiro for the Republicanos party.