A trusted personal adviser to Brizola, who was instrumental in uncovering and denouncing the allegedly electoral fraud that threatened Brizola's gubernatorial election in 1982, the so-called Proconsult scheme, Maia was to be elected to the national Chamber of Deputies in 1986, and saw re-election in 1990. Meanwhile, having achieved personal political prominence in the late 1980s, Maia broke with Brizola and the PDT, affiliating with the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB) in 1991, being elected mayor of the city of Rio de Janeiro for the first time in 1992, defeating the Workers' Party candidate, Afro-Brazilian Benedita da Silva in a run-off election, in a campaign that was regarded by some as being driven by racist ideology. Maia subsequently left the PMDB and joined the Liberal Front Party (PFL).