Brazilian Senate scandals: a guide

What role has the press played?

The constant drumbeat of revelations has been largely responsible for keeping up the pressure  where standard government mechanisms for ethics investigations would otherwise stall or fade away. “The press has very good investigative journalists,” Fleischer said. “They have scores of cases in reserve, each worse than the previous one, and will dribble these out for months.” Some of the mini-scandals that made Brazil’s most respected papers probably wouldn’t pass muster in the American press — obscure gotcha-type stories about ages-old real estate and business transactions — but they have kept the country’s eyes on the scandal (and off other matters, like legislation). In a July column, the ombudsman for Folha de Sao Paulo, one of the country's biggest papers, noted that "the legislature produces more than just crimes and gossip, its only two creations that seem to mobilize reporters of this newspaper."

To Fleischer, Sarney’s decision to seek out a friendly federal judge to issue an injunction on the Estado de Sao Paulo paper was “very violent political action, considered undemocratic in Brazil, something Hugo Chavez does all the time”

Why is Lula so involved?

To an American, the Brazilian president’s deep involvement, and (until recently) vehement defense of the vilified senate president would seem at best like meddling unbecoming a president, and worst like political suicide. “Sarney has a sufficient record in Brazil that he should not be treated as a common person,” Lula said in the senator’s defense. Many Brazilians also reacted strongly, from members of Lula’s Workers Party to the press. “What nonsense is that? My lord.” wrote Clovis Rossi, a columnist at Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper and one of the nation’s most respected political commentators. “It’s Lula’s version of ‘Do you know who I am?’ With a record or without a record, every citizen has the right to be treated in the same way.”

But “Lula had no choice,” Fleischer said. “He owes Sarney a lot of favors. He needs the PMDB [Sarney’s party, allied with Lula’s Workers’ Party] to govern.” Sarney’s PMDB has been part of every ruling coalition for the last two decades, making it, detractors argue, an ideology-free power broker. Lula, ineligible for re-election but devoting an inordinate amount of political capital to see his protegee and minister, Dilma Rousseff, succeed him, felt he should keep Sarney as an ally at all costs. That is, until last week, when it began to look like Sarney’s exit was inevitable, and Lula abruptly changed his tune: “It’s not my problem,” he said last Thursday. “I didn’t vote for Sarney to be president of the Senate. I didn’t even vote for him to be senator.” The abrupt and unsubtle change of direction was viewed as simple politics, and this week has begun to double back and help Sarney behind the scenes.

Will anyone be punished?

“Excluding Sarney, probably no senator will be punished,” said Fleischer, although he noted some of the directors may be expelled from their jobs and even tried in criminal cases, and some Senate staff named to positions via “secret acts” will end up unemployed.

In the middle of the scandal, something happened in New York that would have been unthinkable in Brazil: a City Council member, Miguel Martinez, resigned his post and pled guilty to corruption charges for skimming something like $100,000 from city coffers, all within a week. That simply doesn’t happen in Brazil. Resign your post: occasionally. Pay back the money you stole: rarely. Spend time in jail? Pretty much never. Name your past scandal, and you’ll find many of the protagonists back in public office. Even former president Fernando Collor de Mello, impeached and disgraced in 1992, avoided criminal conviction for corruption and rode out a (rare) eight-year suspension from public office. He is now, what else, a senator.

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