Mensalão - big politicians in jail

This past week the Brazil's superior court ordered the prison of 11 politicians, connected to the mensalão political scandal that came to public eight years ago. They are mainly from the Workers' Party, the same of president Dilma. Among the prisons there are important politics such as José Dirceu, the strong man at Lula's first term as a president.

After the final decision to order the arrests the week before, the Brazilian media was surprised at the beginning of the week with the information that one of the convicteds, Henrique Pizzolato, former director at Banco do Brazil, a state controlled bank, fled to Italy to escape the prison. He is nowon the Interpol wanted list.

Another topic about the arrests is that José Genoino, a congressman that should loose his seat after the conviction is trying a manover to avoid the scandal by asking an early retirement from congress. He also got the privilege of house arrest after stating that he had a hert condition. A medical committee is now analyzing his actual health to see if the privilege should be maitained.

From workers party supporters there was a lot of complaint against the arrests. A manifest signed by lawyers and judges was made public this week against the Supreme Court president, Joaquim Barbosa, questioning the arrest order before 48 hours after the court's final decision. Another argument used by the supporters is that the convicted politicians didn't have the option for a second instance court. This happened because there are privileges that impede politicians to be judged by a regular court in the first place. It is also one of the explanations why the case took so long to be ruled.

Today, O Globo announced that Banco do Brasil is going to seek to recover he 78 million reals that were spent in Mensalão to buy votes from congressmen between 2003 and 2005. 

The case should still be in the news during this week as the congress will vote on the loss of Genoino mandate. 

Concessions

Another important thing that took the attention of the Brazilian press was the concession of two of the most important airports to the private sector. After some protelation the airports of Confins, in Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais, and Galeao, the biggest airport in Rio de Janeiro were finally passed to the private sector. Now more than half of  Brazilian passengers will use private controlled airports. The biggest winner was Odebrecht a big Brazilan contractor, that was benefited by the concession Edital that established a limit share of 15% of companies that already got the airports of Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Campinas.

Story about dictatorship crimes and photo on this year's protests are the main winners of the ExxonMobil Journalism Prize

Today the results of one of the most traditional journalism prizes in Brazil was released, the "Prêmio Esso", sponsored by ExxonMobil. The main news story prize was sent to the story about the secret files of the DOI-CODI (the department responsible for repressing people opposing the dictatorship in Brazil, that lasted from 1964 until 1985). The news story came in a very important moment in Brazil when the country is currently analyzing crimes committed during the tough period through the works of the Truth Commission (Comissão da Verdade). It worth mentioning that president Dilma herself is a victim of the dictatorship, having been tortured and arrested during the period.

Concerning that matter, the Truth Commission started today the process of exhumation of the body of former president João Goulart. Recent documents showed that the president (the last of the democratic period that preceded the dictatorship of 1964) was constantly monitored by the military. For those reasons, Goulart’s family asked in 2007 for an investigation to see if his premature death in 1976 (at the age of 57 years) supposedly from a heart attack was actually caused by poisoning.

The Prêmio Esso also recognized the picture (above) from Victor Dragonetti Tavares, that was the first one that actually put the mid year protests on the cover of the major Brazilian newspapers. The image shows a wounded cop trying to control a protester while defending himself from the crowd. The interesting thing about this picture is that it preceded the major repressing action from the police that ended with several protesters wounded. I remember clearly seeing editorials from major newspapers (I don’t recall now whether it was Folha de S. Paulo or O Estado de S. Paulo) actually calling for more police action on the protests that at that time were causing major traffic jams in São Paulo.

After that picture the police acted, but disproportionally, and images of ordinary people wounded gained the social networks and spread the protests concentrated in São Paulo and Rio to the whole country. This triggered a support for protesters that led to the government response and the reduction of the public transport fare (that were the main reasons for the initial protests).

Both stories are in the core of Brazil’s media attention right now. Today the main subject being analyzed by the press is the judgment of Mensalão (the corruption scheme denounced in 2006 during the 1st term of president Lula, that basically consisted in the purchase of congressmen votes) that involves several of the Worker’s Party (PT) important members.The corruption is clearly one of the motives of the protests. So far the news is that the supreme court maintained what was ruled before and is asking for the immediate arrest of several of the 27 convicted persons, but I’ll wait to see tomorrow’s newspapers to write more about the subject.

The general tone around Dilma Rousseff

Nobody yet knows at what extent this year’s protests will have an effect on the next year’s presidential elections. There were those who said it would impede Dilma from being reelected and I certainly believe it was one thing that gave Eduardo Campos and the its party the PSB the final push towards moving out of the government and launching a presidential candidacy for president.

One thing is for sure, the tone of the press around Dilma could certainly be one indicator that preceded the protests. Initially the press was very positive around Dilma. The president got compliments from O Estado de S. Paulo in her first interview. Dilma was somewhat protected by the press during her first year as a president, when she had to cut six ministers accused of corruption.

The honeymoon started to end throughout the second year and definitely ended in the end beginning of this year, when it became clear that the country’s economy stability had been thrown away by the president, in the name of maintaining (artificially) the unemployment low and the president’s popularity high. The main indicator that this was the case was the lost of the grip in inflation, that obliged Dilma to push back one of her main objectives in the economic policy (of bringing the Brazilian interest rates to international levels).

Today, Ricardo Noblat, columnist of O Globo, elevates even more the tone against the president, siding her with two other Brazilian contradictions already unmasked: the former senator Demóstenes Torres (that was a symbol of honesty until he was linked with Carlos Cachoeira, a criminal that run illegal gambling business across the Brazil’s center-west region) and Eike Batista (a Brazilian billionaire, featured as one of the richest men in the world, and now facing bankruptcy). Noblat says Dilma’s contradiction is her fame as a tough manager, highly promoted by Lula. Since none of the big infrastructure improvements were launched due to a lack of managerial and political abilities, Noblat says it is a big contradiction that Dilma still has a chance of being elected for a second term.

This certainly gives another glimpse of what will be the general tone against the president next year, and again can also indicate that the amount of effort, and money, that PT will have to spend for this reelection will be much more than expected two years ago.