Brazil In Turmoil: Jailed for corruption, ex-President Lula registered for presidency bid again

[Arkain2K]

Engulfed by Corruption Probe, Brazil’s House Speaker Resigns
Mario Sergio Lima
July 7, 2016​

Brazilian congressman Eduardo Cunha, who led the drive to impeach Dilma Rousseff, stepped down as lower house speaker on Thursday following allegations of corruption.

He announced his decision in a press conference in Brasilia, at times choking up with emotion, saying his decision would help ease the political instability that has rocked Latin America’s largest economy for the past year. His resignation will allow the lower house to hold elections for a new speaker as soon as next week.

The Supreme Court had already suspended Cunha as speaker after it opened a criminal case against him earlier this year on charges of accepting kickbacks. A congressional ethics committee in mid-June recommended the lower house remove him from office following allegations that he lied about the presence of a Swiss bank account used to hide dirty money. The full chamber hasn’t yet held a vote on the matter.

Cunha is still a member of Congress, which means only the Supreme Court -- not a federal judge -- can charge him. That could provide him with some respite, as the top court often takes longer to rule and sentence than its federal counterparts. Cunha has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and said Thursday he’s being punished for leading the impeachment process against Rousseff.

The investigation into Cunha is part of a sweeping probe known as Car Wash into graft at state-run companies. The scandal has rattled Brazil’s establishment, destabilizing Rousseff’s administration just before it fell as well as that of her successor, Michel Temer. With less than two months in office, Temer has seen three of his ministers resign after they were accused of either participating in the graft or trying to obstruct the investigation. All three denied wrongdoing.

Cunha, a member of Temer’s political party, was a leading critic of Rousseff and opened the impeachment process against her in the lower house last year. The Senate is expected to make a final decision on impeachment in August. Political consulting firm Eurasia Group wrote in a note Thursday there’s a 90 percent chance the chamber will vote against Rousseff and permanently remove her from office.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ption-probe-brazil-s-house-speaker-steps-down

 

[Arkain2K]

Brazil’s reviled lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha resigns in tears
Jonathan Watts
Thursday 7 July 2016 ​

​

Brazil’s lower house speaker Eduardo Cunha has resigned in tears less than three months after he orchestrated the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff.

His departure is the latest twist in the country’s ongoing political turmoil, but few are likely to lament the reviled head of a despised institution.

Cunha – an ultra-conservative evangelical – had already been suspended by the supreme court while he is investigated for alleged corruption, intimidation of lawmakers, obstruction of justice and abuse of power.

Although he has denied the charges and previously vowed to stay in his post, he has come under increasing pressure to step down. This week, his former ally in the Brazilian Democratic Movement party, interim president Michel Temer, advised him it was time to go.

Cunha’s resignation speech was typically abrasive: “It is well known that the house is brainless,” he said of the institution he helped to shape.

He described his treatment as cruel and inhuman, wished success to Temer and his successor, and then called on god to bless Brazil, before departing the stage he has dominated since 2015.

The question now is whether Cunha will also be stripped of his seat in the lower house, which would expose him to a possible trial in the lower courts. Police involved in the Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation say privately this is only a matter of time because there is so much evidence against him.

While many in Brazil would like to see him go to jail, the prospect is likely to alarm many of his former allies. Like Frank Underwood in House of Cards, Cunha is thought to have built a political power base on his knowledge of other politician’s dirty secrets. According to the domestic media, he has warned Temer that if he goes to prison, he will not go alone.

Cunha initiated the impeachment process against Rousseff last December as a form of retribution after her Workers party refused to back him in the ethics committee.

But if he hoped the battle against the president would also divert attention from his case, or win rewards from those he put in power, he has been proved wrong.

“Cunha was very functional in destroying Dilma, now he is being destroyed,” former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso told the Guardian shortly before the speaker was suspended.

Cunha is one of three senior figures in the ruling Brazilian Democratic Movement party (PMDB), alongside Temer and Upper house leader Renan Calheiros. A trained economist, he was a protege of Fernando Collor, the only previous president to have been impeached since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985.

He converted to the Assembly of God – one of the country’s biggest evangelical churches – and rose to notoriety as the outspoken host of a radio show on an evangelical station. With support from the Christian right, he won his first seat in the chamber of deputies in 2003 as a representative of Rio de Janeiro, and became speaker in 2015.

In polls, he is consistently among the most unpopular politicians in the nation. A Datafolha survey earlier this year found 77% of the voters wanted Cunha to be stripped of his mandate, compared to 61-67% for Rousseff.

Public anger has been stirred by reports that he hid $5m in illegal kickbacks in a secret Swiss bank account, that he threatened opponents and enjoyed a profligate lifestyle that was far beyond the means of his declared annual income of $120,000.

Prosecutors have leaked credit card statements showing that Cunha and his family splurged $40,000 on a nine-day family holiday in Miami at the end of 2013, then followed this with similar shopping and restaurant sprees in Paris, New York and Zurich. Cunha and his wife also allegedly own a fleet of eight luxury cars, including a Porsche, which were registered under the name of Jesus.com and C3 Productions.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/07/brazil-lower-house-speaker-eduardo-cunha-resigns

 

[Rod1]

Public anger has been stirred by reports that he hid $5m in illegal kickbacks in a secret Swiss bank account, that he threatened opponents and enjoyed a profligate lifestyle that was far beyond the means of his declared annual income of $120,000.

Prosecutors have leaked credit card statements showing that Cunha and his family splurged $40,000 on a nine-day family holiday in Miami at the end of 2013, then followed this with similar shopping and restaurant sprees in Paris, New York and Zurich. Cunha and his wife also allegedly own a fleet of eight luxury cars, including a Porsche, which were registered under the name of Jesus.com and C3 Productions.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/07/brazil-lower-house-speaker-eduardo-cunha-resigns

Evangelicals...

 

[Arkain2K]

Corrupted politician who orchestrated Dilma Rousseff's downfall is himself stripped of power
By Euan McKirdy and Marilia Brocchetto
September 13, 2016

​

The politician who led the charge to impeach Brazil's former President Dilma Rousseff has himself been ousted from power.

Eduardo Cunha, the former speaker of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies, was removed from office Monday night by a landslide vote in the chamber of 450 votes to 10 with nine abstentions.

Lawmakers decided overwhelmingly that Cunha had lied during the investigation into corruption at Brazil's state-run oil company, Petrobras, and had hid millions of dollars in offshore accounts. On top of losing his seat as speaker, Cunha also loses all political privileges for eight years.

Cunha had resigned as speaker of the Chamber of Deputies in July, and was already suspended as speaker in May by the Supreme Court, at the request of the attorney general, who accused him of obstructing justice and hiding millions of dollars in bribes in Swiss bank accounts.
The corruption investigation has already brought down some of the country's top political and business leaders.

By being voted out, Cunha loses partial immunity from prosecution offered to members of Congress and high-ranking politicians.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/13/americas/eduardo-cunha-brazil-impeachment/

 

[DespicablePeep]

is normal

 

[Islam Imamate]

By being voted out, Cunha loses partial immunity from prosecution offered to members of Congress and high-ranking politicians.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/13/americas/eduardo-cunha-brazil-impeachment/

So now he's liable to get swept up by the Lavo Jato right? Could make things interesting if he knows as much as they say he knows.

 

[Falsedawn]

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/23...s-impeached-for-refusing-his-economic-agenda/


BRAZIL’S PRESIDENT MICHEL TEMER SAYS ROUSSEFF WAS IMPEACHED FOR REFUSING HIS ECONOMIC AGENDA

BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT MICHEL TEMER let an open secret become explicitly clear during a speech to business and foreign policy leaders yesterday in New York. The country’s elected and now-removed President, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached because of her position on economic policy, rather than any alleged wrongdoing on her part, her installed successor admitted. Temer’s stunning, and seemingly unscripted, acknowledgement will surely bolster the view of impeachment opponents that Dilma’s removal was a “parliamentary coup d’etat.”

In his remarks, Temer clearly stated what impeachment opponents have long maintained: that he and his party began to agitate for Rousseff’s impeachment when she refused to implement the pro-business economic plan of Temer’s party. That economic plan which Rousseff refused to implement called for widespread cuts to social programs and privatization, an agenda radically different from the one approved by Brazilians through the ballot box in 2014, when Dilma’s Workers’ Party won its fourth straight presidential election. The comments were delivered on Wednesday to an audience at the New York headquarters of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA).

 

[Arkain2K]

Brazil 'Carwash' Probe Yields Largest-Ever $3.5 Billion Corruption Penalty
by Tom Schoenberg, Jessica Brice, and Erik Larson
December 21, 2016

Odebrecht SA, Latin America’s biggest construction company, and an affiliate agreed to pay more than $3.5 billion to resolve bribery allegations involving Brazil’s state-run oil company, the largest corruption penalty ever levied by global authorities.

Odebrecht pleaded guilty in Brooklyn, New York, on Wednesday to conspiring to pay bribes in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. An Odebrecht affiliate, the petrochemicals maker Braskem SA, also pleaded guilty. The two admitted to paying officials of Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the Brazilian oil giant known as Petrobras, to win contracts.

Odebrecht agreed with U.S. authorities to a $4.5 billion penalty, but it said it could pay only $2.6 billion, according to U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie. The judge said the final number would be determined at an April 17 hearing and said it could be higher or lower than $2.6 billion. Braskem agreed to pay $632 million to the U.S. Justice Department and $325 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The convictions mark the first corporate resolutions in the U.S. stemming from a nearly three-year investigation of more than a dozen companies in the international corruption scandal known as Operation Carwash, which has helped plunge Brazil into recession. They are probably not the last, however, with the SEC and Justice Department saying their investigations are continuing. Brazil and Switzerland are also investigating the role of individuals and banks, respectively.

“Odebrecht has admitted that for more than a decade it operated an off-books internal financial structure whose sole purpose was to facilitate bribery on a massive scale,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Sung-Hee Suh said on a conference call with reporters. “This was a hidden but fully functioning Odebrecht business unit -- a department of bribery so to speak -- that systematically paid hundreds of millions of dollars to corrupt government officials in countries on three continents.”

The illicit payments were made through “carefully disguised” wire transfers to shell companies or using cash-stuffed suitcases left at predetermined locations, Suh said. In addition to Brazil, Suh said there were 11 other countries where the bribe payments were made. They include Argentina, Angola and Mexico.

Much of the penalty money to be paid to the U.S. will flow back to Brazil, where the Carwash probe started with a focus on illicit payments made to executives at Petrobras. It then spread to other industries in Brazil, implicating construction companies, shipyards and leading politicians from several parties.

Of the penalties to be paid by the companies implicated in the scandal, 80 percent will go to Brazil as reparations to help counter the negative effect of the scandal on the nation’s economy, the Justice Department said. The remaining 20 percent is to be split between Switzerland and the U.S.

Guilty Pleas

In the Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday, Odebrecht general counsel Adriano Chaves acknowledged the company’s role in the conspiracy and entered a guilty plea. Braskem’s general counsel, Gustavo Sampaio Valverde, also entered a guilty plea for the company.

In Washington, the SEC accused Braskem, which is controlled by Odebrecht, of nearly a decade of bribery. Of the $325 million in disgorgements it sought from Braskem, it said that $260 million would go to Brazil.

From 2006 and through 2014, Braskem paid bribes to political parties and officials in the government of Brazil in order to assist the company in obtaining or retaining business in that country, according to the SEC complaint.

Complex Network

The bribery scheme used a complex network of offshore shell companies, bank accounts located in traditional tax havens, individual currency dealers and off-book financial accounts, the SEC alleged. In 2006, former senior executives at Braskem diverted company funds into Odebrecht’s off-book accounts in order to make the bribe payments, the SEC alleged. The diverted funds were approved by senior Braskem and Odebrecht executives.

Braskem made about $250 million in improper payments to the illicit network that Odebrecht used to make the improper payments, the SEC said. At least $75 million of those payments was used for bribes that directly benefited Braskem, the agency said. The companies received a gain of $3.3 billion from the conspiracy, according to information read in the Brooklyn court.

The SEC didn’t bring a case against Odebrecht. The agency has jurisdiction over Braskem, it said, because the company has shares registered with the agency.

Odebrecht’s $750 million perpetual bonds rose 2.7 cents to 58.01 cents on the dollar, the most since Dec. 2 when the bond price surged 10 percent as reports of the settlement were circulating.

“Odebrecht has cooperated fully and will continue to do so,” the company said in a written statement. “The company is glad to be turning the page and focusing on its future.”

Record Penalties

In all, the penalties set a record for a multi-country corruption settlement and may hint at the size of penalties still to come from other companies under investigation. The previous record for anti-bribery penalties was imposed against Siemens AG, which in 2008 paid $800 million to the U.S. for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and another $800 million to German authorities.

Brazilian prosecutors investigating Operation Carwash -- a reference to a service station used to launder money that was identified early in the investigation -- say that contractors for Petrobras bribed executives of the company in exchange for lucrative contracts and then inflated the costs. Petrobras has said it has improved its compliance standards and has fully cooperated with the investigations.

Recipients of the Brazil bribes included at least one official at Petrobras, the state-owned oil company, as well as senators and representatives of the Brazilian congress, and foreign political party officials with at least two leading political parties in Brazil, the SEC alleged in the complaint.

A government official at Petrobras intervened on Braskem’s behalf over the pricing formula for a 2009 agreement for the purchase from Petrobras of naphtha, the raw material used in Braskem’s production of petrochemicals, the SEC complaint alleges. This reduced Braskem’s price of naphtha by approximately $94 million from March 2009 until February 2014, according to the SEC.

Legislative Help

Braskem also received several tax credits and other benefits from legislative measures that allowed it to avoid approximately $187 million in expenses and costs, the SEC alleges. Braskem made about $8 million when executives at the company bribed officials in the Brazilian government, who used their influence to prevent Petrobras from terminating a joint venture agreement involving a polypropylene plant, the SEC alleges.

Odebrecht, a construction powerhouse with projects from Central America to Africa, has been among the hardest hit by the investigation. Its chief executive officer was arrested in June 2015 and later ordered to serve 19 years in prison, an unusually harsh sentence in a nation with a history of white-collar corruption and impunity. The firm has been blocked from signing new contracts with the state oil producer, and jittery state and private banks have cut off funding.

“Odebrecht’s biggest challenge now is to generate cash to pay the penalty. I’ve never seen such a big penalty,” said Carlos Gribel, the head of fixed income at Andbanc Brokerage in Miami who used to recommend Odebrecht group bonds to his clients. “It will have a smaller pipeline, a smaller structure, but will survive.”

Effect on Brazil

Brazil is suffering from its worst recession in a century, partly because of fallout from the sweeping corruption scandal, which caused waves of job losses in the construction, oil and shipbuilding industries. Although the settlement allows Odebrecht to start bidding again on public contracts, providing fuel for the country’s crippled infrastructure sector, the remaining investigations against corporate executives could implicate more public officials and deepen the country’s political crisis.

Some of the illicit cash paid to Petrobras made its way to the country’s political parties, prosecutors have alleged. Insiders at Petrobras and a cartel of contractors allegedly siphoned large sums from inflated construction and service contracts. Prosecutors have called former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva the mastermind of the graft scheme, and Eduardo Cunha, the former speaker of Brazil’s lower house of Congress, faces charges of money laundering, corruption and tax evasion. Lula’s successor and protege, Dilma Rousseff, was never implicated, but the scandal fueled social unrest that contributed to her impeachment in August.

Brazil’s Ibovespa -- the world’s best-performing currency and stock market through the end of November -- has become one of the worst performers in December as investors fret that the same political undercurrents that derailed Rousseff’s administration were now threatening President Michel Temer’s administration.

The Justice Department and SEC opened their investigations in October 2014 with a focus on Petrobras, though much of that early work was done by Brazilian investigators, a person familiar with the situation said at the time. The wider examination of companies that had dealings with Petrobras started more recently, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News earlier this year.

Wide Probe

U.S. authorities are looking at any company that has been named publicly in the Brazilian investigation, the people said. Those include the builders OAS SA, Camargo Correa SA and Andrade Gutierrez SA. Executives from the companies reached plea bargains in the scandal. The federal police said builders also paid bribes to win contracts at Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA, the utility known as Eletrobras, and a former executive was arrested.

Prosecutors from the Justice Department’s foreign corruption unit have been assigned to various pieces of the probe, the people said, and are working with the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia and the SEC on a possible case against Petrobras.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...askem-agree-to-carwash-penalty-of-3-5-billion

 

[Arkain2K]

Brazil police raid offices in probe of state bank Caixa Econômica Federal
By Pedro Fonseca and Brad Haynes
Jan 13, 2017​

Brazilian police raided homes and offices on Friday in a corruption investigation of loans that state bank Caixa Econômica Federal extended to meatpacking, finance, toll road and real estate firms between 2011 and 2013.

Brasilia-based federal Judge Vallisney Oliveira issued an arrest and search warrant on grounds that a former minister to President Michel Temer allegedly colluded with a former lower house speaker to grant loans to several companies in exchange for bribes.

Oliveira wrote that the ex-minister, Geddel Vieira Lima, then vice president at Caixa, and former Speaker Eduardo Cunha allegedly steered loans to companies in a graft scheme including meatpackers JBS SA and Marfrig Global Foods SA .

Lima resigned from the cabinet in November amid allegations he had pressured another minister to approve a real estate project. His lawyers did not reply to a request for comment.

Shares of JBS, Brazil's biggest meatpacker, fell 2 percent on Friday. Marfrig shares fell over 2 percent before rebounding to trade up 1 percent.

Representatives for JBS and Marfrig said their companies' offices were not raided and they denied any wrongdoing.

Representatives for Marfrig said the company borrowed from Caixa at market rates without any special privileges.

Caixa said in a statement that the bank is collaborating with authorities. A presidential press representative declined to comment.

Police said a statement that the latest investigation followed from text messages discovered on a cell phone in a December 2015 raid on the home of Cunha, then speaker of Brazil's lower house.

Cunha is now in prison on separate corruption allegations. His lawyers dismissed the latest allegations as "absolutely unfounded."

http://www.reuters.com/article/brazil-corruption-caixa-ec-federal-idUSL1N1F30H6

 

[Arkain2K]

Brazil's ex-President Lula convicted of corruption

​

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been convicted of corruption charges and sentenced to nine and a half years in prison.

The judge ruled he could remain free pending an appeal.

Lula has rejected claims that he received an apartment as a bribe in a corruption scandal linked to state oil company Petrobras.

He says the trial is politically motivated and has strongly denied any wrongdoing.

The case is the first of five charges against him.

Running again?

Lula served eight years as president until 2011 and has expressed interest in running again in next year's elections for the left-wing Workers' Party.

On Wednesday, a judge found him guilty of accepting bribes from engineering firm OAS in the form of a beachfront apartment in return for his help in winning contracts with the state oil company.

The head of the Workers' Party, Senator Gleisi Hoffmann, hit out at the ruling, saying it was designed to stop Lula standing for office.

She said the party would protest against the decision.

The BBC's Katy Watson in Rio says Lula remains a popular politician and the sentence will deeply divide Brazil.

The charges Lula faces all relate to the Car Wash scandal, the nickname for Brazil's biggest ever corruption probe.

Operation Car Wash was launched three years ago amid escalating public anger over political corruption.

The investigation centres on firms that were allegedly offered deals with Petrobras in exchange for bribes, which were funnelled into politicians' pockets and party slush funds.

Lula, a former steel worker turned union leader, came to office as the first left-wing leader in Brazil in nearly half a century.

He was Brazil's most popular president during his tenure - former US President Barack Obama labelled him the most popular politician on Earth.

Unable to stand for a third consecutive term, he was succeeded by close ally Dilma Rousseff, who was later impeached.

Current President Michel Temer also faces corruption allegations and is resisting calls for him to step down.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40588992

 

[Arkain2K]

The Most Important Criminal Conviction in Brazil’s History
By Alex Cuadros

Lula lived up to an old Brazilian saying, “rouba mas faz”—“he steals, but he gets things done.”​

On Wednesday, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who served as the President of Brazil from 2003 to 2011, was convicted of corruption and money laundering. The case against him grew out of a long-running federal bribery investigation, known as Operation Car Wash, that has sent some of Brazil’s richest and most powerful people to prison—but Lula was the most significant figure to fall yet.

The judge who decided the case, Sérgio Moro, clearly understood the gravity of the situation. He sentenced Lula to nine and a half years in prison but, in deference to the national “trauma” involved in jailing a former President, allowed him to remain free during his appeal. Yet Moro was unambiguous about his conclusion that Lula had taken kickbacks while in office. In his written decision, he described the scheme uncovered by Operation Car Wash: the state oil company, Petrobras, had awarded contracts to construction firms, which then funnelled some of the money to lawmakers in Lula’s coalition. Lula’s precise role in the execution of the scheme remains unclear, but one of the firms involved, OAS, was found to have secretly given him a beachside apartment worth more than seven hundred thousand dollars. More details are sure to come out: Lula faces four additional trials for charges including corruption, influence peddling, and obstruction of justice.

After receiving his sentence, Lula was defiant. On Thursday morning, he held a press conference at the Workers’ Party headquarters in São Paulo. He railed against Moro, whose two-hundred-and-sixty-page ruling, he said, showed “absolutely no proof” of his guilt. Before the verdict, Lula had been—despite his legal troubles—leading the country’s 2018 Presidential election polls, and now he vowed to run. “Anyone who thinks this is the end of Lula is going to be disappointed,” he said, in a voice that has been made gravelly by decades of smoking and a bout of throat cancer. “Wait for me, because no one can decree my end but the Brazilian people.”

Lula’s enduring appeal stems in part from the economic boom he oversaw during his term as President, when thirty million people in Brazil were lifted out of extreme poverty. At the time, many Brazilians allowed themselves to dream that the country might finally see widespread prosperity. And working-class Brazilians identified with his biography: he was the first President of Brazil to grow up poor. Instead of attending school, he sold peanuts and shined shoes. At fourteen, he got a job at an auto-parts factory in São Paulo, where he lost his left pinky in a machine. He gained national fame in the seventies when, as a young union leader, he called for the first major workers strikes in defiance of the military dictatorship. He never lost his lisp, even after being elected to Congress in the eighties. To the country’s workers, he was more like them than any politician they had seen before—a squat man who drank cachaça.

Lula ran for President three times before winning the 2002 election. In his campaigns, he promised to fight the corruption that helped keep Brazil’s élites rich and its workers poor. Once in office, however, he decided not to confront the old system head on. To pass his progressive agenda, he decided to work within the system, building alliances with old-school politicians who, even if they had once supported the business-friendly dictatorship, put patronage over ideology. In the venerable Brazilian tradition, Lula’s Workers’ Party dangled government contracts to win campaign donations from wealthy families, and not every donation was declared to the authorities. With these trade-offs, Lula lived up to an old Brazilian saying, “rouba mas faz”—“he steals, but he gets things done.”

One thing that every Brazilian knows is that while Lula is the country’s first President to be convicted of corruption, he is almost certainly not the first to have committed it. The difference is that, in the past, Brazilian politicians could quash any investigation that threatened them. The irony of Lula’s downfall is that, while his Administration was siphoning billions of dollars from public coffers, it was also allowing an independent judiciary to flourish. That independence led to the investigation—Operation Car Wash—that would eventually ensnare him.

There were many in Brazil who celebrated Lula’s conviction. They believed him to be uniquely corrupt, and blamed the Workers’ Party for the country’s current economic ills. His supporters, however, were not shy in expressing their dismay. Union leaders and left-wing politicians called for protests against what they consider to be a political persecution, part of a right-wing conspiracy to bury Lula’s chances of returning to the Presidency. “This is not democracy,” Lindbergh Farias, a senator from the Workers’ Party, declared in a video on his Facebook page.

The problem with this theory is that Operation Car Wash has also targeted right-wing politicians. The current President, Michel Temer, who helped to orchestrate the impeachment of Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, is one of several top conservative figures facing charges of corruption. (He has denied the charges). In fact, powerful politicians on both the right and the left have begun to quietly unite against Operation Car Wash. Behind the scenes, the Workers’ Party has reportedly worked with Temer’s party toward two common goals: amnesty for politicians who took undeclared campaign donations, and restrictions on the power of prosecutors. Last month, Lula even defended Temer publicly, accusing the country’s prosecutor general of “pyrotechnics” and saying that he should be punished if his allegations are disproved.

In his ruling, Moro cited the seventeenth-century English writer Thomas Fuller: “Be you never so high, the law is above you.” This is a very new concept in Brazil. In recent weeks, Temer has made drastic cuts to the federal police budget, and the main task force behind Operation Car Wash was shut down—even though ninety-five per cent of Brazilians want the investigation to keep going. This is a contest that defies ideological categories, pitting most of the political class against the public. Lula helped millions of the country’s poor, but to side with him now would risk undermining the fight against impunity.

Alex Cuadros is the author of “Brazillionaires: Wealth, Power, Decadence, and Hope in an American Country,” published by Spiegel & Grau.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-most-important-criminal-conviction-in-brazils-history

 

[Phr3121]

Why this interest in Brazilian politics? All this corruption is nothing new to Brazilians. Why should Americans care?
I was born and raised in Brazil. I have Brazilian and U.S. citizenship. I remember the Brazil of the 1970s and 80s under military dictatorship. I also went back and lived there from 2008 to 2013. The country is and has been in a sorry state of affairs. Corruption being the main culprit. It is now, unfortunately, part of the culture of Brazil. It starts at the top and runs all the way down to the states and cities. What controls it? Money (bribery) or a bullet to the head. Never has there been a country with so much potential and natural resources with such a corrupt people and government. I personally got fed up and moved back to the United States. The only thing that will clean the country up is another military dictatorship. Regardless of what some people may say, the military did a lot of good for Brazil from 1964 to 1985. You felt safe. Today, you fear being on the streets or the roads after 10:00 pm. Some countries do not deserve to have a democracy. The government fails to enforce the laws or police itself, which adds to the corruption. Thus the current situation...

 

[Arkain2K]

Why this interest in Brazilian politics?

Is this question for real? How long have you been in the neighborhood?

International Politics is a big subject around here. Same reason why people come to the Philippines thread, the Venezuela thread, the Brexit thread, the Israel/Palestine thread, the Germany threads, the French threads, the Australia threads, the China threads, the Mexico threads, the Turkey threads, and so on.

The WR is not only for discussing the U.S and Russia, despite its appearances these past couple of months.

PS: There are more Brazilians participating in this thread than you think, but you would already knew that had you actually read it like normal people would.

 

[Phr3121]

Is this question for real? How long have you been in the neighborhood? International Politics is a big subject around here.

Well, you answered your own question. The only interest comes from people of that country. Plus you seem to be doing 90% of the posting. Like talking to yourself. I don't see any debates. Everything you are posting is already on the internet. Why would I come to Sherdog and read your posts to get the news? No offense, but you must be trying to set a record for posted messages.

 

[Phr3121]

I still believe that Brazil will come out of the crisis stronger than Mexico, since that political revolution will ensure that corruption will remain checked, Mexico will remain a mediocre country as long as corruption in the political class is not addressed. But its still a stable mediocrity.

No it won't. "Political revolution will ensure that corruption will remain checked." All Brazilians wish for that, but truth is filling your personal pockets with money is a stronger urge than to do what is right for your city, state, and country. Yeah, everyone goes to the streets and demonstrates, beats on their pots and pans, and goes home. Next day nothing has changed. Brazilians by nature are pacifists. That's their 'Achilles heal' when it comes to fixing the government. Some of the worst corruption in Brazil is in the North-Eastern states. Mostly poor and uneducated folks whose vote are paid for by the government officials.

 

[Rod1]

No it won't. "Political revolution will ensure that corruption will remain checked." All Brazilians wish for that, but truth is filling your personal pockets with money is a stronger urge than to do what is right for your city, state, and country. Yeah, everyone goes to the streets and demonstrates, beats on their pots and pans, and goes home. Next day nothing has changed. Brazilians by nature are pacifists. That's their 'Achilles heal' when it comes to fixing the government. Some of the worst corruption in Brazil is in the North-Eastern states. Mostly poor and uneducated folks whose vote are paid for by the government officials.

Yet they just sent Lula to prison, took down a sitting president and several other politicians, thats something.

 

[Arkain2K]

Thanks for this Arkain2K, I'm ashamed to say this is the first reading I've done on this , I'll follow it more closely from here on out .

Well, you answered your own question. The only interest comes from people of that country. Plus you seem to be doing 90% of the posting. Like talking to yourself. I don't see any debates. Everything you are posting is already on the internet. Why would I come to Sherdog and read your posts to get the news?

Ah, the stark differences between those who actually read the thread and participate in the on-going discussion versus the newbies who jumps in face-first with their useless "contribution".

 

[Phr3121]

Yet they just sent Lula to prison, took down a sitting president and several other politicians, thats something.

Do you really think Lula is going to spend any time in prison? He is a retired president. Brazil took down a sitting president (the old vice president) who was also corrupt. All these corrupt politicians being taken down is nothing new. Nothing is going to happen to them. Just look at the history of Jose Sarney. A corrupt statesmen and president. He is back in congress. So is Fernando Collor de Mello, another ex-president. You take out corrupt politicians and replace them with new corrupt ones. I say, let the military come back to power.

Ah, the stark differences between those who actually read the thread and participate in the on-going discussion versus the newbies who jumps in face-first with their useless "contribution".

If people are coming to Sherdog to get their news on Brazil, they are in a sorry state of affairs. You got offended. I've been following your posts for a while here on Sherdog. You create a thread and bombard it with cut-and-paste articles for about 3 pages. Dude one article would be enough. Let people discuss the issue. Also, I went back and read this whole thread. Some of this information is over a year old. A lot of the discussion is not from Brazilians and has any real relation to the topic. Well, that is also true of a lot of other threads on Sherdog. A few of the responses are actually good. But hey, it is your thread, enjoy it. Yeah, my 'contributions' are worthless alright. I'm from Brazil and lived through what you are discussing.

 

[Rod1]

Do you really think Lula is going to spend any time in prison? He is a retired president. Brazil took down a sitting president (the old vice president) who was also corrupt. All these corrupt politicians being taken down is nothing new. Nothing is going to happen to them. Just look at the history of Jose Sarney. A corrupt statesmen and president. He is back in congress. So is Fernando Collor de Mello, another ex-president. You take out corrupt politicians and replace them with new corrupt ones. I say, let the military come back to power..

So you think Lava Jato is smokes and mirrors or do you think they will be able to get out of it?

 

[Phr3121]

So you think Lava Jato is smokes and mirrors or do you think they will be able to get out of it?

Well, you are from Mexico and can relate to a lot of the problems and corruption Brazil is going through. By the way, Russia is going through the same thing after 'Glasnost'. 'Lava Jato' or 'Operation Car Wash' is a step in the right direction but not nearly enough of what Brazil needs to fix its problems. I personally don't think any of the politicians involved will do any real time. It will be more like 'house arrest'. The worst part is that they will all probably be back into politics in a few years like Jose Sarney and Fernando Collor de Mello. Both ex-presidents who left in disgrace and are now back in the Brazilian Congress. That is really fucked up in my book. Brazil has changed a lot in 40 years. Most of it for the worst, specially in politics. Corruption is now part of the culture and accepted as normal. Money is more important than morals. Brazil needs another revolution or the military to come back into power to impose order and safety in the country. Crime rate has skyrocketed through the years and people really don't care. Brazilians, and Mexicans, are looked down on throughout the world because of their corruption. Brazilian tourists are despised in Europe and the United States.

Captain Roberto Nascimento of the Rio de Janeiro BOPE elite police helped expose a lot of the political corruption in Rio and Brazil as can be seen in the movie 'Elite Squad: The Enemy Within', 2010.



In the movie (and real life), Nascimento is called to the State Assembly and testifies for over three hours at the court, implicating many politicians and policemen. In the aftermath, Gregorio Fortunado, a state representative and local TV presenter who sides with the corrupt police militia, is sentenced to prison; many corrupt officers and their allies are murdered as their leaders try to silence them. The governor, however, manages to be reelected, and Guaracy is elected state representative for Rio de Janeiro in the Chamber of Deputies. Nascimento ends his narration with a reflection over the influence of politicians on the social issues of Brazil. How regardless of who is in power, the corruption continues.