Brazil mayor was shot in ‘fake attack’ for election boost – but still lost in landslide

José Aprígio da Silva was wounded in the shoulder during the attack. Photograph: Allison Sales/Folhapress

As campaign strategies go it was unorthodox and illegal: buy an AK-47, hire a pair of phony hitmen, and stage a fake assassination attempt against the mayor that would generate public sympathy and help him win a second term in power.

That, Brazilian police claim, was the gameplan last October when, on the eve of the local election, an armoured vehicle carrying José Aprígio da Silva came under fire in Taboão da Serra, a town on the outskirts of São Paulo.