Brazil: Former president is guilty

Brazil: Former president is guilty

      Cacildo Marques – Sao Paulo

      At the same time that former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio da Silva (Lula) was convicted of corruption for 12 years and one month in prison, South Korean President Park Geun-hye was also sentenced for corruption to 24 years in prison. She went through a process, and received a sentence which is almost double the penalty he received. She did not deny the crime, he did. The detail is that he responds as a defendant for another five processes, almost all dealing with bribery of large companies contractors.

      People from outside Brazil should be surprised that such an important prisoner raves that he is persecuted and innocent, and yet the justice of the country does not listen to him. Unlike the behavior of South Koreans, however, who accept judicial sentences, one of the sad traditions of Brazil is to deny to the ultimate consequences any accusation that one is being targeted.

      Evidences. The ex-Brazilian jailed president directed his defense to brag that there is no evidence against him. The defense followed the order of the client. Instead of scouring the prosecution's pieces, in order to alleviate the sentence, the lawyers spent all the time saying that the evidence was forged, leaving the promoters at ease to work and set up the process. For this first case, in which he was convicted of "dissimulation of ownership" of an apartment he won as a bribe, he could have been sentenced to three years in prison, to be accomplished in freedom, once in the current law of Brazil only who pays more than four years of prison sentence is jailed. With nobody to dismantle the prosecution, the conviction by the judge of first instance, Sergio Moro, was of nine years and the one of the court, in second instance, was even higher, making up those 12 years and one month remembered above. There are at least 22 evidences in the process, including police seized at the defendant's residence. But the defense always repeated "there is no proof".

      Privilege. In certain points, the Brazilian courts in a childlike way gave in to the vagaries of the defendant's lawyers. A "preventive Habeas Corpus" is understood as a piece that the lawyer prepares in advance so that, in case his client is arrested, forward to the court quickly. The defense of the former president understood that preventive Habeas Corpus is to require the court to adjudicate the Habeas Corpus before the defendant is arrested. That was made. Before it was known that the defendant would take that sentence, Brazil's supreme court granted the defense's request and ruled "preventatively" the Habeas Corpus, as applying. The defense, however, was unsuccessful.

      Crisis. The successor of the former president, appointed by him, Dilma Rousseff, completed a four-year term and made many economic mistakes, leading the country to a serious crisis in 2014. Even so, she was elected that year, with a small margin, for a second four-year term. As the crisis did not slow down quickly, although inflation had been reduced, the street riots have intensified. The president had acquired his own flight and no longer consulted the former president weekly, as he did in the first years of the previous term. Now she consulted with Minister Aloizio Mercadante, which infuriated Mr. Da Silva. The reason is that Aloizio Mercadante was the man who took Mr. Da Silva from the trade union and brought him into high politics. He is the creator of him, just as Caesar created Brutus (which participated in his murder), Jesus Christ created Peter (who denied him three times), and Agrippina created Nero (who led her to death). Mercadante, who did not win any office in Da Silva's two terms (for his luck, or else he would be wound up with justice), in the Dilma Rousseff administration began as Minister of Science, became Minister of Education, and finally came to occupy the central post of Chief Minister of the Civil House. Mr. Da Silva accused him of being a bad negotiator and very closed inside himself. It was then that the president appointed Vice-President Michel Temer as "political articulator", with the task of making the connection between the chief minister and the parliament. With much experience in the House of Representatives, the vice president was doing this with competence and success. With that pair in the political area and Joaquim Levy taking care of finances in the Ministry of Finance, little by little the crisis was being removed. But one day the vice president delivered a sentence which, according to Mr. Da Silva, revealed his secret intentions. Temer said, "Brazil needs someone to unify it". It was stated that the vice president showed interest in overthrowing the president and taking her place. Mr. Da Silva, seconded by the president of his Workers Party, Rui Falcao, insistently demanded the president to remove Mercadante and Temer. Mercadante, an old friend of the author of this present text, colleague in the struggle against the 1964 military regime, invented the political man Da Silva and led him to contest the presidential election in the demagogic Luis-Bonapartist system (1848) that unhappy the Latin America for more than one century and Islam for some decades, with Turkey as the youngest member of the club, regardless of whether the model is necessarily failed.

      Agreement. The president of the House of Representatives, Eduardo Cunha, of the MDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement), party of the vice president, did not have affinities with the president and was accused of corruption crimes. She had received 11 requests for impeachment of the president, but kept them in the drawer, in the hope that the president and her party would protect him, not interfering so that he would be overthrown and brought to justice. It happened that a Minister of Education, Cid Gomes, gave a lecture at a university where he accused the Representatives to be a bunch of thieves and packers. The president of the House, Eduardo Cunha, went to the palace to demand the president to fire the minister. Initially she was reluctant, but he pressed and finally the president called the minister and made him ask to be exonerated. In Sao Bernardo, Mr. Da Silva felt that his pupil, the president he had indicated, had acquired complete independence from her mentor, who it was him, Da Silva. Not only did he advise himself with Aloizio, but she dismissed the minister at the request of the president of the Low Chamber. He decided to depart for the attack. He announced, together with Rui Falcao, that there would be no agreement with Eduardo Cunha, since the president could not condone with bandit (previously she could it). Eduardo Cunha, on his side, pulled the 11 processes of impeachment out of the drawer and had the one he considered more consistent.

      Impeachment. Mr. Da Silva had succeeded in overthrowing his preeminent positions with Vice-President Michel Temer and the Chief Minister Aloizio Mercadante. His wish was for the president to leave Mercadante without charge, but she returned it to the Ministry of Education. Mr. Da Silva then sought a way to put himself above Mercadante. The president had installed as chief minister the former governor of Bahia, Jaques Wagner, who had been playing a half-erased role. Da Silva demanded the position. In those days, justice was finalizing lawsuits and he, Da Silva, risked being arrested. If he were to be sworn in as a minister, he would gain a forum prerogative and be free from the first instance, passing into the hands of the supreme court, whose judges were mostly appointed by him and the president. Pressured by the urgency, president called the institute where the former president was in Sao Paulo, advising that he was sending Mr. "Bessias", a clerk, for him to sign, before any emergency. Judge Sergio Moro had been recording calls from that institute, with permission of the courts. At the time of the president's phone call, the time allowed for recording had already been exceeded, but this did not prevented the judge from divulging the speech content. That was the biggest conversation scandal in the 13 years of the Workers' Party government, because it was wide open that the position would serve to free Mr. Da Silva from justice. The inauguration did not occur, obviously. The process of impeachment soon began to process. The piece was chosen by the jurists Helio Bicudo, Janaina Paschoal and Miguel Reale Junior. The accusation was that the president committed a crime against the public purse when using loans from public banks without authorization from parliament. The file was spelled out of "fiscal pedals". The impeachment passed in the House with a loose vote against the chief of State. By rule constitutional, the president was dismissed for six months, being replaced in office by the vice president, until the Senate to emit its verdict. Senators from the Workers' Party could have used these six months to make policy in favor of the president, but they spent that time burning the barn. It was six months of verbal attacks on all party parliamentarians they called "putschist". The Senate vote simply confirmed the Low Chamber's decision. A few months later, the supreme court removed the position of Eduardo Cunha, which led him to have his mandate revoked and finally to be arrested.

      Dilma. As a cadre from the Labor Democratic Party (PDT) rather than the Workers Party, Dilma Rousseff joined her new party by disagreements of alliances in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, winning positions in the state government. The leader of the PDT, Leonel Brizola, accused her, along with others who followed her, of selling herself "for a dish of lentils". Even though she was not trained in the new party, she incorporated a dangerous belief of the new allies, that "money come from trees", or that "money falls from the sky". Thus, soon after the impeachment, the technicians reworked the budget accounts and realized that two-thirds of the primary public deficit (excluding public debt interest) were being hidden. Instead of having the equivalent of 17 billion US dollars, the new account showed something around 51 billion. Without impeachment, the severe crisis would certainly cease, but there would be no transparency to ascertain where the illusory gain and the real gain would be, even because one of the party's flags is the "social control" of the mass media.

      Plan. The parliamentarians of the president's party were told to outline themselves against the majority. There were 18 senators in a house of 81 seats. The plan was to take the party to the opposition, by the "putschists", so that, in the 2018 election, Mr. Da Silva could be presented as victim. At the time of impeachment, the proportion of popular voters against the president and former president was 80%. Under the plan, the buffer government would fail, and Mr. Da Silva would return to the palace in the arms of the population. But, swiftly, the process on the apartment bribe on the beach was completed earlier, and Mr. Da Silva, who settled in the headquarters of the Sao Bernardo metalworkers' union, hoping that the workers were there to prevent his arrest, surrendered the next day, when he saw that the militants paid 30 reais a day by the Apeoesp (union of public teachers of Sao Paulo) to make barricades were waning. From Sao Bernardo, State of Sao Paulo, he was taken to Curitiba and was detained there in the prison of the Federal Police of that city.

      Candidacy. By the Law of the Clean Sheet, of popular initiative, which he himself sanctioned as president, he could not present himself as a candidate, once those convicted in the lower court are prevented for eight years from pursuing elective positions. To keep his party in evidence, he decided to apply for sub judice, up to the limit of trial periods in court. In order to justify an application that the law vetoes, one insisted in the triple argument that (a) Mr. Da Silva is persecuted, (b) he is wronged for helping the poor, and (c) he was convicted without evidence in a warped plot by courts and strengthened by the country's media. The plan is almost perfect, as the preference for his candidacy, laden with bad faith litigation against the electoral court and perjury, is 39% lacking one month and a half for the election, above all legitimate candidates, and his party is favored by 24% of the voters, leaving in second place the MDB, with 4%, and also the PSDB (Party of the Brazilian Social Democracy), with 4%. In addition, these "theses" are spread outside Brazil by Workers Party members and have persuaded influential people, such as linguist Noam Chomsky, jurist Sarah Cleveland and Senator Bernie Sanders. Formerly a poor metallurgist, Da Silva is now the third richest candidate among the thirteen candidates for the 2018 presidential election, second only to Henrique Meirelles, former president of Bank Boston, and the first one, banker Joao Amoedo. The man nominated as a candidate for vice president on the board of Da Silva, Fernando Haddad, tries to inherit the votes of the former metallurgist, but being secondary in the arrangement cannot participate in the televising debates, which invites only the holders, and who are not arrested. The moment the electoral court officially vetoes the name of Da Silva, the deputy takes the place, like head of board. With no time to cast votes and without the money of the wealthy Company Odebrecht, whose CEO is under house arrest, and previously flooded the election campaigns with money, there is no chance for the Workers' Party.

      Cacildo Marques, publisher of the Citizen Gazette (Gazeta Cidada), Butantan, Sao Paulo.