{"id":594,"date":"2011-08-03T16:57:34","date_gmt":"2011-08-03T18:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/observingbrazil.com\/?p=594"},"modified":"2019-09-09T01:18:53","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T01:18:53","slug":"dilma-cleaning-house-or-slapping-wrists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/dilma-cleaning-house-or-slapping-wrists\/","title":{"rendered":"Dilma Cleaning House or Slapping Wrists?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past three months, corruption scandals and ministerial resignations have been changing the face of Brasilia. Yesterday, Defense Minister Nelson Jobim resigned<\/a> after expressing dissatisfaction with President Dilma Rousseff’s handling of the military. Jobim’s departure marks the third Minister to resign in the first seven months of the Rousseff administration. At the pace of nearly one minister per two-month period, Rousseff indeed appears to be cleaning house. All of these early exits have been ‘Lulistas’ — Ministers who played prominent roles in the administration of Rousseff’s benefactor.<\/p>\n

While it is positive to see that Rousseff is fashioning the government in her own design and forcing the exit of Ministers implicated in allegations of grand corruption, the government’s unwillingness to apply real sanctions to malfeasance continues to draw attention to Brazil’s defiance of its own laws and its long legacy of impunity.<\/p>\n

The corruption scandals of 2011 illustrate that the abuse of the public’s trust continues to be an important problem in Brazilian politics.<\/p>\n

First<\/a> it was the President\u2019s number two, Antonio Palocci, forced to resign after he could not explain why his net worth quadrupled in four years based solely on \u2018consulting contracts\u2019 to party and government hacks.<\/p>\n

Then<\/a> it was the PR\u2019s Alfredo Nascimento, the Minister of Transportation, who resigned after revelations that his son had received contracts worth more than $20 million dollars. Nascimento\u2019s resignation accompanied the dismissal of 27 other officials from the same Ministry.<\/p>\n

Most recently, the Minister of Agriculture, Romero Juc\u00e1 (PMDB), was summoned to answer questions in Congress after his brother revealed deposits of more than $8 million Reales to ghost accounts.<\/p>\n

The heroes emerging from these three scandals are Veja Magazine, which broke the Transportation and Agricultural scandals, and the Folha de S\u00e3o Paulo for being the first on top of Palocci\u2019s irregular enrichment.<\/p>\n

Valiant Veja <\/strong><\/p>\n

Veja\u2019s reporting on corruption has stood out as particularly valiant. It was this magazine that broke allegations of corruption during the administration of President Fernando Collor, ultimately leading to Collor\u2019s resignation. The article that led to these fateful events was based on an interview with the President\u2019s brother, Pedro, in 1992. The parallel between the Collor scandal and the latest allegations surrounding the Minister of Agriculture is striking \u2013both accusations of corruption originated from brothers. Veja\u2019s talent for pitting members of Brazil\u2019s nepotistic political families against one another should give us pause.<\/p>\n

Veja has also provided a public service in its coverage of ministerial expense accounts. Using the government\u2019s Transparency Portal<\/a> and inside sources in various ministries, Veja has exposed just how lavishly top officials spend the public\u2019s money. Of all the ministries, it was the Minister of Culture, Ana de Hollanda, who used public finances most licentiously \u2013 jetting around the country on weekends at the public\u2019s expense.<\/p>\n

Veja\u2019s reporting<\/a> led to an investigation by the Comptroller General and now Hollanda must repay some R$45,000 (US$30K) of public money spent illicitly during the first semester of 2011. Brazil\u2019s representative to the Open Government Partnership, Foreign Relations Minister Antonio Patriota, has also incurred astronomical travel expenses\u2014R$30,649 per day (about US$20K), according to the same article in Veja.<\/p>\n

Dilma Facilitating Revelations?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Veja\u2019s success in culling information about expenses from within the Federal Executive Branch is not entirely surprising; it is widely understood that the Rousseff administration has sought to clean up corruption in government, especially the portfolios of ministries held by dubious coalition allies, such as the PR (Transportation). Rousseff appears to be putting her stamp on her administration, making it \u2018hers.’ She has done so by refusing to cover-up corruption or expos\u00e9s; indeed she may even be encouraging them.<\/p>\n

The congressional opposition, led by the PSDB party, has signaled that it will call five ministers to parliament, an effort to obtain answers about allegations of corruption. The government has the power to stonewall these demands, but as a recent Jornal Globo article indicates<\/a>, the Rousseff administration has virtuously chosen not to do so.<\/p>\n

Slapping Wrists <\/strong><\/p>\n

But the Rousseff administration also appears to be reluctant let anti-corruption measures pose political problems for the government\u2019s legislative ambitions. Three officials dismissed from the Ministry of Transportation have already been exonerated, according to this report by the Folha de S\u00e3o Paulo<\/a>. These include Jos\u00e9 Henrique Coelho Sadok de S\u00e1, whose wife, working for the Ara\u00fajo construction company, signed business deals with the Ministry of Transportation. By endorsing impunity from prosecution– in clear defiance of criminal evidence — the Rousseff government signals that it will take a soft-handed approach to corruption.<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding the administration\u2019s willingness to opposition grillings in parliament, it has lobbied hard against more severe measures, such as the famous Congressional Inquiry (CPI). Yesterday evening, opposition Senators had mustered enough signatures (27) to trigger a CPI. Under extreme pressure from the government, however, two Senators have retracted their commitments, according to the Folha de S\u00e3o Paulo<\/a>. Once again, the government has privileged impunity at the cost of maintaining the support of its congressional allies.<\/p>\n

No Media Circus<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the final calculus, the Rousseff administration appears willing to open itself up to some degree of scrutiny, and will even dismiss officials once the press has definitively placed corruption in the public spotlight. However, it is not willing to incriminate allies under the law, nor has it shown much taste for parading corruption into the limelight. The Jornal Globo quotes the President in an article<\/a> published yesterday:<\/p>\n

The government will not embrace any cases of corruption, but the government also will not pose for the media in the combat against corruption. We will combat it effectively.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given Brazil\u2019s commitments to the Open Government Partnership and its pending transparency deficit \u2013a freedom of information law and a truth commission, among other measures \u2013it behooves government to do better. As it stands, citizens lack the means to adequately monitor government (a freedom of information law). They have little choice but to put their faith in checks carried out by government itself and the scandalous, albeit valiant, revelations of Veja Magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past three months, corruption scandals and ministerial resignations have been changing the face of Brasilia. Yesterday, Defense Minister Nelson Jobim resigned after expressing dissatisfaction with President Dilma Rousseff’s handling of the military. Jobim’s departure marks the third Minister to resign in the first seven months of the Rousseff administration. At the pace of Read more about Dilma Cleaning House or Slapping Wrists?<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1670,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions\/1670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}