Spokesmen for the small and electorally weak parties linked to Protestant paramilitaries say publicly that they wish their communities would take complaints about local crime to the police, instead of demanding paramilitary action.
Mr Rossi, a 58-year-old lawyer, has cast himself as an anti-establishment outsider, despite a long political career that has featured stints as a federal congressman and as mayor of Osasco, an industrial suburb of Sao Paulo city, and has seen him switch parties four times and churches thrice (he is currently an evangelical Protestant).