Comte Bittencourt

Plínio Comte Leite Bittencourt (born 2 March 1957) is a Brazilian politician. He is affiliated with Cidadania, of which he is the current president. He served as a councilman and as vice-mayor of the city of Niterói. He later became the Secretary of Education for the state of Rio de Janeiro from 2020 to 2021. He was a vice-gubernatorial candidate for the 2018 Rio de Janeiro gubernatorial election, with Eduardo Paes as the gubernatorial candidate, losing to Wilson Witzel and Cláudio Castro.

Biography
During his time as a state deputy, Bittencourt presided over the Education Commission of the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro. He is the state president of Cidadania in Rio de Janeiro. He was vice-mayor of Niterói during the mayoralty of Godofredo Pinto of the Workers' Party (PT). He was elected again as a state deputy in 2014 with 36,155 votes.

He was selected as vice-mayoral candidate, with Rodrigo Neves as mayor, due to the barring of provisional vice-mayor candidate Axel Grael by the regional Elections' Court. They were elected to their respective offices, with Neves being reelected as mayor. Due to his belief of the city needing a strong representative at the state legislative assembly in order to better address crises at the state level, he resigned from being vice-mayor in order to return being a state deputy. He continued to hold that position until 2019.

On 5 August 2018, in an announcement made during a conference at the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum, with representatives from both Cidadania (then called the PPS) and the Democratas, Bittencourt announced he was running to be vice-governor of Rio de Janeiro, with Rio de Janeiro mayor Eduardo Paes as the gubernatorial candidate. Cidadania later confirmed their support for the ticket, which would go on to reach second place, losing to the ticket led by Witzel and Castro.

Bittencourt served as the State Secretary of Education after Pedro Fernandes Neto was dismissed from the position. Bittencourt's official nomination occurred on 25 September 2020, invited by then-interim governor Cláudio Castro (PSC). He assumed the position during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which discussions of school students returning to classes in-person was high in the public consciousness. He left the position in less than a year, being replaced by Alexandre Valle in 2021.