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Corruption in Brazil

Inglorious returns

Dec 30th 2011, 17:02 by H.J. | SÃO PAULO

WHEN Brazil’s lawmakers come back in February after their summer breaks, they will find a long-absent colleague among them. On December 22nd, ten years after renouncing his Senate seat in order to avoid being impeached for corruption claims—and more than a year after 1.8m residents of the vast Amazonian state of Pará voted for his return—Jader Barbalho is back to Brasília once more. Since Congress was already in recess, eight of his peers had to be called back from holidays to swear him in. The ceremony and subsequent press conference were greatly enlivened by his nine-year-old son, Daniel, who made faces at photographers and raised his hand to ask questions just like the journalists. (Mr Barbalho eventually took one of them, but when it touched uncomfortably on the issue of corruption, he declined to answer, promising his son an “exclusive” afterwards, at home.)

Mr Barbalho’s path back to the Senate has had more twists than a Brazilian telenovela. His candidacy was barred three months before the elections of 2010 when the then-president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, signed off on the ficha limpa (clean slate) law. This move to clean up Brazilian politics was born out of popular protests, in which millions of Brazilians signed a petition to bar corrupt politicians from standing for office. Just how depressingly willing many of their compatriots are to vote for such corruptos can be judged by the well-known saying: rouba, mas faz (he steals, but he gets things done). This slogan was coined over 60 years ago by the enemies of a particularly dirty politician—and then successfully adopted by his own supporters to describe his platform.

The new law bars politicians from running for public office for eight years after conviction for violating electoral statutes (mostly by vote-buying) or misusing public funds. It also covers those who have strategically stepped down to avoid such allegations being investigated. Mr Barbalho did so after claims that he had diverted 9m reais ($4.8m) from a regional-development fund to his wife’s frogfarm. Clear enough, you might think. But the affected politicians argued that barring those with dirty records was a change to the electoral rules, which is not allowed in the year before an election takes place.

Rubbish, responded anti-corruption campaigners: it merely altered eligibility for office, not the rules under which the election was to be fought. The country’s highest electoral court agreed, barring candidates like Mr Barbalho—who immediately appealed to the Supreme Court and stood for election anyway. Justice in Brazil is notoriously slow, and it was only a few days before the first round when the court got around to considering the matter. With only ten members (one judge had retired and not yet been replaced), it split evenly, and decided to postpone its final decision.

That came only in March of this year, when the vacant seat was filled—and the new judge came down on the side of the corruptos. The dozens of politicians who topped polls but were barred from federal or state chambers have been turning up in the electoral courts and demanding their seats ever since. Mr Barbalho and various other politicians with dubious reputations may have made it into office this time round. But the ficha limpa law discouraged others from standing, and in the mid-terms next year, corruptos should be barred at last. Campaigning against corruption in Brazil takes patience.

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ljgbrito

I read in a magazine the following phrase: "The people wait for a messiah who will come remove the corruption from Brazil."
So, only is possible say Amém.

Roberto Patella

We Brazilians have many reasons to be ashamed of. One of them is to occupy the 84º position in the HDI ranking in spiting of being the sixty world economy. In my mind this turns out to be the final outcome of a sequence of unscrupulous politicians like Mr. Barbalho. There are many guesses as to how much is lost in the drains of corruption and I doubt that any one has a faint idea. But I bet it is much, really much. We just have to consider that the tax collection in Brazil is about 35% of the GNP and that very few is spent in infrastructure, healthcare, education and security. So the lion´s share of all resources goes into supporting a huge and inefficient government organization, in maintaining a great variety of privileges and worse of all, is simply evaporated in the kettles of corruption.
But don’t take me wrong. I am not totally negative. The “clean slate” bill was a victory as was the removal from office of former Collor president years ago by force of public pressure. I still keep a hidden faith that one day bad politicians will be banned or put in jail. And in that day Brazil will step out of the third world.

Ed (Brazil)

Brazil's most aburd public work class is the one running our Laws.
Judges and prossecutors.

They are not content to have the "Pindura Day", they also hold the slowest, most corrupt and bad legal system in the world. The Pendura is a day in which every laywer in Brazil has entitled themselves to have free lunches, at the expense of restaurant owners, and only mentioning they are making the "Pindura" after they ate. Nice huh ?

This is heritage of our colonial capitalism. It is also very discusting... Lawyrs are a profession to corret mankind biggest defect: Self interest.

So some far away day, when mankind evolves, and notices self interest makes everybody's world worse, we won't need lawyers anymore.

So lawyrs, be aware that you have a profession only because of mankind's most discussing defect. You are the bad solution capitalism has choose to deal with our largest single problem: Self interest.

Are you proud of that ?

Ed (Brazil)

Brazil would improve its politics A LOT, with only one single regulation: Vote is no longer mandatory !!!
Why would this help ? Cause since everybody has to vote, while Brazilians only care about carnaval and Football, most voters will cast the ballot because they will have bad consequences in case they don't (You can not renew your passport, can't buy a home, can't do a lot of stuff). So they don't even see this as an election, as a right they have. They see it as obligation.
Now when they get to the voting site, not knowing anything about candidates, as they think their vote is a grain in the beach, and beeing poor, do you think a BRL 50 note would make them choose their candidate with conviction ?
So if vote were no mandatory, we would have a much better QUALITY of vote. Only the ones who value democracy, and are up to take the time to go to voting site, would decide our country's fate.
I even bet less than 50% of population would vote. So you would just eliminate the bad votes, and kiss "Brazil's Northeast Colonialism Politics" (whi are living the dream) goodbay...
But, politicians know this, so there is no chance they would approve it.
Of course, this rationale applies much more to, say, House candidates, than to President candidates, for which everybody is aware of.

Promtheus

Corruption in Brazil developed under the President Lula's governement.
It remains an the people pays the high cost of thecorruption. You will see more aticles in corruption during this year

Carlos Alberto Leite
caleite@infolink.com.br

Antonio.Dotsilva

@azevedoj1 and @all readers.

Yes Sir,

To you that understand the language of Camoes it is worthy the reading of that article at the web page of “Veja Magazine” written by Reinaldo Azevedo (http://veja.abril.com.br/blog/reinaldo/geral/o-caso-jader-%E2%80%93-nao-...). However if you do not know Portuguese the marvelous “Google Translator” can give a notion of the content.
Basically what we need to be in mind is that the constitution of Brazil has to be respected and that that curse of opportunistic political actions taken in the vicinity of elections with the objective to favor a specific political or a certain group of interest (politic or economic) should have no place in the Brazilian scenario.
Finally with the help of the above mentioned “Google translator”, having made few corrections, I will now to cite the article (in a passage near of its end) written by Reinaldo Azevedo:
“If the Supreme Court (would have) allowed a change in eligibility requirements unless an election year, the Constitution had been violated. And I am among those who think that (this period is) even small. Why? Think government that faces a possible drop in popularity and it is realized on the verge of losing the election, think about a party that has a vocation to (establish itself) as a single party ... If these people (are) allowed to put his hand in the law at any time, open-the door to a dictatorship.”

Krakadoum in reply to Antonio.Dotsilva

Really, Reinaldo Azevedo, here? Please let us not transform this into the comments area of Brazilian newspapers. I am sure that the journalist who wrote this piece is familiar with his work, and also that he/she speaks very good Portuguese. The fact that TE actually tries to make sense of things instead of just reproducing whatever is more convenient to local political factions is one of the reasons this newspaper is so widely respected, whereas the Brazilian press unfortunately isn't. I am all for the argument, but I am sure you could have argued for strict legality on your own two feet.

I do agree otherwise that missing from this article is the annoying tendency of politicians to approve self-serving legislation while in power. The weight of tradition and the power of parties, which seem to prevent American and British politicians from doing this, appear to hold no sway in Latin America (witness Chávez, Morales, Uribe, Fujimori and Brazil's own Cardoso, all of which proposed and got approved re-election amendments with the unconcealed objective of staying longer in power). It was not two years ago that the opposition's two main potential candidates - Mr Serra and Mr Neves - were discussing changing the rules once more if they won the elections, simply to accommodate their respective political ambitions. Of course, whether they would have reduced their own terms once comfortably installed in the President's office is another issue.

So, as much as I do agree in general with the idea of barring condemned politicians from standing for elections, it is true that having the clean slate law applicable for the last elections would have opened the door for further casuism. Slow to come as it was, I believe the position of the Supreme Court was correct in the end. Of course it would have been an added benefit if Mr Barbalho had accidentally been prevented from coming back into power for procedural reasons - but as a matter of law it is hard to argue that he should have been so prevented. Plus his replacement, Ms Brito, respectable as she was in her attempts to challenge some of the most backward aspects of the Brazilian society, was apparently not very reasonable in her positions. All in all, the government is probably relieved to have someone they can just buy out - if perhaps all too literally.

James AntiBr

Like Charles de Gaulle, Albert Einstein knew a lot about Brazil with his quote:

"Insanity: Doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results"

Ok, the principle of the quote applies to Brazil like a glove. The Brazilian
blind faith that government will change, and the government passing more
and more and more laws dealing with corruption albeit with no bite to it.

Here are some things that could actually lessen corruption
1)Technology - Brazilian corrupt politicians are slick, but tend to repeat the
same mistakes and victories from generation to generation. Creating algorithms
and studying past and present Politicians can help identify those least capable
of dealing with higher offices and discard them before they set their foot in.
Of course, technology has to be updated often much like a anti-virus to identify
changes in tactics and blind spots.

2)Prison- From Taiwan's former President to Rod Blagojevich in the U.S, corrupt
officials are spending quality time in jail. Brazil?????????????????? can you name one???

3)Oversight- Simply put, there is no OverLord over the "lords." Be it a highly scrutinized
independent organization without political ties, or a transparency organization composed
of national and international monitors. Once in power, Politicians in Brazil are more God
than God. Who can bring them down? Who can tell them what to do or not to do? Who
can remove them from office for malfeasance? The people can agitate all they want, but
without a hard bite to say the least, nothing will change.

4)Report Card- If someone desires to represent the people, he or she should not only
open their finances, life and be transparent, but also be held accountable for their
stewardship. That means results during their term (i.e. what they could do or had the
power to do, but failed to do so). Anyone can promise whatsoever during a campaign,
and a reasonable person knowns that these days it is mostly puffery. What matters is
after the election. Did the county, state, etc had $50 billion available for infrastructure,
but nothing was fixed and improved? Ah! what happened to the $50 billion?!?! That is
the report card people should know.

azevedoj1

Dear Sir,

I do believe Mr. Barbalho is one of the most corrupt people we currently have in our senate (although competition is very tough). However, he should have been sworn in, according to the law. I will not write here about the details (there is an excellent article from Reinaldo Azevedo: http://veja.abril.com.br/blog/reinaldo/geral/o-caso-jader-%E2%80%93-nao-... ). The one worse than a corrupt politician is a people that belive that we can break the law when it is right to do so! It's never right to break the law!!! We would all be just like Mr. Barbalho!
Kind regards.

Top Hat 001

The only reason people put up with the corrupt is because either 1) they don't know they are corrupt or 2) because the "rouba, mas faz (he steals, but he gets things done)" politicians are better than those who steal and get nothing done and there is a (likely) possibility that former's replacement is just that.

Uncertainty concerning the alternative is the only reason we put up with bad circumstances. If we knew the afterlife is better than any life on Earth we would all kill ourselves. It is only possibility that life after death is worse or nonexistent that stops us from answering "Not to be" in that famous question: "To be or not to be?"

It seems the people of Pará have decided to have the corrupt who get things done rather than the possibility of the corrupt who get nothing done.

flymulla

When I was young, I used to make mistakes in schools, as all do. The tutors then used to come to my father and tell me that I had erred. My dad used to inspire me and teach me and tell me,” Son you better be a good student as we need clever youths for future.” In Economist, I get the blog chopped of and no explanation, but a threat. It is not in conformity to our standard. Sirs, once in 1900, you had a small ATM card like column for blogging, we complained, you heard. But I never get a reply as to why my blog does not meet you standard. Reminds me, when the author asks for the critics, he says, “Please comment, we can take action and put the right in the next issue” The same error and the same error and the same error and we are still puzzled as to why we tell them anything. They do not pay us. We in fact do them a favour by a small correction that would improve the book. Teach me and I will write better. That is, if you care. I thank you Firozali A.Mulla DBA

nschomer

Their supreme court seems almost as corrupt as ours. At least they haven't tried to insist that corporations are people and money is speech yet.

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