{"id":4026,"date":"2023-10-21T16:34:30","date_gmt":"2023-10-21T16:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/business\/brazil-is-taking-worrying-steps-away-from-clean-politics\/"},"modified":"2023-10-21T16:34:30","modified_gmt":"2023-10-21T16:34:30","slug":"brazil-is-taking-worrying-steps-away-from-clean-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/?p=4026","title":{"rendered":"Brazil is taking worrying steps away from clean politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=6bb7c8a7-1375-479f-89d9-048da59f5dec\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>The political class in Bras\u00edlia is up to its old tricks. A decade after a vast corruption scandal shook the nation, a string of recent moves by Congress and the Supreme Court is reigniting concerns about transparency, accountability and impunity in Latin America\u2019s largest nation. <\/p>\n<p>Front and centre has been a so-called \u201celectoral reform\u201d, spearheaded by Arthur Lira, speaker of the lower house. The legislation, which sailed through the lower house last month and now awaits a Senate vote, has been sold as simple tweaks and adjustments to the electoral system. <\/p>\n<p>But the details tell a different story. If passed, the legislation would permit politicians to disclose their finances only after campaigns, not during as is currently required. It would also allow parties to use public electoral funds to buy or rent cars, boats and planes, as well as pay for their maintenance and fuel. <\/p>\n<p>And perhaps, most significantly, it could enable a kind of \u201cvote buying\u201d. Under current rules, politicians have to disclose every individual who is contracted to work on campaigns. But under the proposed legislation, politicians would be permitted to hire people through employment agencies, without disclosing the names of individuals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPoliticians will use these companies to legalise all kinds of payments during the campaign,\u201d said Bruno Carazza, a professor at the Dom Cabral Foundation. \u201cIt is a measure against transparency. Politicians will pay citizens for their votes and declare this money was paid to companies to hire campaign workers.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"n-content-image n-content-image--full\"><picture><source media=\"(min-width: 700px)\"  width=\"2290\" height=\"1526\"><\/source><source media=\"(max-width: 490px)\"  width=\"1526\" height=\"1526\"><\/source><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/5cc4cb60-a2d0-4645-845e-6043db786a51.jpg\" alt=\"Brazilian Supreme Court justice Gilmar Mendes\" data-image-type=\"image\" width=\"2290\" height=\"1526\"><\/picture><figcaption class=\"n-content-picture__caption\"><span>Justice Gilmar Mendes last month shelved a Federal Police investigation into a suspected bribery case involving political allies of House Speaker Arthur Lira <\/span><span> <!-- -->\u00a9 Mauro Pimentel\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In parallel to the reform, Congress is also pushing through an \u201camnesty bill\u201d that could erase fines worth hundreds of millions of dollars, which political parties generated by failing to comply with electoral rules on quotas for female and non-white candidates. <\/p>\n<p>The nation\u2019s association for public prosecutors warned that the twin pieces of legislation represented a \u201cserious step backward\u201d and would \u201cimpact the transparency of Brazilian democracy\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>Adriana Ventura, one of just a handful of lawmakers to vote against the electoral reform, put it more starkly: \u201cWhat we are talking about here is an increase in impunity for those who do illegal things with money.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Questionable electoral activities are not the only red flag. Consecutive actions by Supreme Court judges have signalled there is little or no appetite for corruption investigations involving the political class. <\/p>\n<p>Gilmar Mendes, one of the court\u2019s 11 justices, last month shelved a Federal Police investigation into a suspected bribery case involving political allies of House Speaker Lira. The judge reasoned the probe undermined Lira\u2019s right as a lawmaker to parliamentary immunity.<\/p>\n<p>Around the same time, almost out of the blue, Dias Toffoli \u2014 another top judge \u2014 decided to nullify vast amounts of evidence obtained in the decade-old Lava Jato, or car wash, corruption investigation. He then ordered the investigation of prosecutors who had struck the plea bargains to obtain the evidence in question.<\/p>\n<p>Running over several years, the Lava Jato probe revealed a vast contracts-for-kickbacks network involving billions of dollars and scores of senior politicians and businesspeople. Many received jail sentences and, at the time, the investigation was credited with tackling Brazil\u2019s culture of political impunity. The US Treasury called it \u201cthe largest foreign bribery case in history\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>Its legacy, however, was deeply tarnished by revelations about prosecutorial over-reach and political bias, including in an investigation of now president Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva. The leftwing leader spent almost two years in prison as a result of the probe. His conviction was later annulled by the supreme court.<\/p>\n<p>In his ruling last month, Toffoli repeated familiar points that Lava Jato \u201cdisrespected due legal process and acted with bias\u201d. His decision, however, to disinter a long-buried investigation only to put a further nail into its coffin sent a clear message: the days of free-ranging investigations are over. To critics, it was another sign the court was blowing with the political winds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re in another round of reversing all the decisions that shook the country during Lava Jato,\u201d said Carazza. \u201cThe political system already took a lot of measures to restore its position and now we have another chapter with the Supreme Court disregarding all the evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A report by the OECD last week said Brazil needed \u201curgent key reforms\u201d in the fight against corruption, highlighting the \u201climited level of enforcement\u201d, de facto impunity and perceived threats to the independence of prosecutors in foreign bribery cases.<\/p>\n<p>Matias Spektor, a professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said that the \u201cfight against corruption will no longer be a dominant theme in Brazilian politics\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOrder, as it were, has been restored. And this restoration has entailed the curtailing of the powers to investigate and prosecute professional politicians,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>But he added that much of the blame for this was due to the \u201cquestionable or illegal and politically motivated\u201d actions of the Lava Jato task force. \u201cIn the end, this did enormous damage to the cause of clean politics.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/6bb7c8a7-1375-479f-89d9-048da59f5dec\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The political&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Brazil is taking worrying steps away from clean politics | inFundPros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The political class in Bras\u00edlia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/?p=4026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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