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[1] The head of Brazil’s Senate, Renan
Calheiros, has been accused of tax evasion,
using a government jet to visit a surgeon who
alleviated his baldness with hair implants and
[5] allowing a construction company’s lobbyist to
pay child support for his daughter from an
extramarital affair with a television journalist.
Eduardo Cunha, the conservative
speaker of Brazil’s lower house of Congress,
[10] has also faced — and successfully battled — a
list of corruption accusations, from
embezzlement to living in an apartment paid
for by a black-market money dealer.
In some democracies, figures facing such
[15] situations might find themselves banished from
public life even if they were never convicted.
But not in Brazil, where the men who command
the scandal-plagued Congress are actually
increasing their power over the scandal
[20] plagued president, Dilma Rousseff.
The move reflects one of the most
profound shifts in political power in the country
in decades — and is a clear measure of the
troubles Ms. Rousseff now faces in the wake of
[25] a sweeping bribery case involving Brazil’s
national oil company.
“This is ‘House of Cards,’ Brazilian style,
with the chiefs in Congress seizing a moment
when the president is very weak,” said David
[30] Fleischer, a professor emeritus of political
science at the University of Brasília. “They are
putting into motion a strategy of simply letting
Dilma dangle in the wind,” he added.
The strategy seems to be working. While
[35] both Mr. Cunha and Mr. Calheiros are on the
list of dozens of political figures under
investigation in connection with the bribery
scandal, the congressional leaders appear to be
deflecting attention from their own troubles by
[40] revolting against Ms. Rousseff, whose public
approval rating stands at a dismal 13 percent.
In doing so, they have managed to
largely shield the Brazilian Congress from
blame. Its own bleak approval rating climbed
[45] to 11 percent in April from 9 percent in March,
according to Datafolha, a prominent Brazilian
polling company. The survey, conducted
through interviews with 2,834 people, has a
margin of sampling error of plus or minus two
[50] percentage points.
Ms. Rousseff, who narrowly won re
election in October, is facing huge protests
calling for her impeachment, with many
Brazilians fuming over the sluggish economy
[55] and revelations of the broad bribery scheme at
the national oil company, Petrobras. She was
chairwoman of the board at the state-
controlled oil giant from 2003 to 2010, roughly
corresponding to the period when the scheme
[60] was started.
The scandal involved executives at
Petrobras accepting vast amounts of bribes,
enriching themselves while also channeling
funds to political figures and to Ms. Rousseff’s
[65] leftist Workers Party, according to testimony by
former executives.
No testimony has emerged indicating
that Ms. Rousseff personally profited from the
scheme. But at the same time, Ms. Rousseff
[70] has been put on the defensive, insisting that
bribery proceeds were not channeled to her
election campaign. The scandal moved closer
to the president after the arrest of the
treasurer of her party, João Vaccari Neto.
[75] As Ms. Rousseff and her party reel from
the scandal, she is facing a rebellion from the
centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party,
which has anchored her coalition and controls
both houses of Congress.
[80] Both Mr. Calheiros, the Senate leader,
and Mr. Cunha, the speaker of the lower house,
are members of the rebelling party. Ms.
Rousseff’s own vice president, Michel Temer, is
the leader of the PMDB, as the party is known,
[85] and Mr. Temer is bolstering his own power
after the president appealed to him to ease
tensions with Congress.
At each turn in the bribery scandal, the
PMDB’s chiefs have moved to erode the power
[90] of the left-leaning Ms. Rousseff, stalling some
of the austerity measures proposed by her
finance minister; thwarting the president’s
nominees for her cabinet; and advancing
socially conservative measures aimed at
[95] weakening gun-control laws and repealing
legislation keeping teenagers from being tried
as adults.
Cristovam Buarque, a respected senator
on the left who voted against Ms. Rousseff in
[100] the recent election, said the growing sway over
the president by the troika formed by the
heads of Congress and the vice president
amounted to a “coup.”
“Instead of a general, a brigadier and an
[105] admiral acting with the support of the armed
forces, we have the vice president of the
republic and the chiefs of Congress
maneuvering with the support of the troops of
the PMDB,” Mr. Buarque said.
[110] Congress’s growing resistance represents
a turning point for an institution that has been
widely despised in Brazil for its propensity to
reward itself with pay raises when other parts
of society endure austerity measures, and for
[115] its capacity to shield its members facing legal
challenges.
Nearly 40 percent of federal legislators
who won large numbers of votes in the 2014
elections are under investigation in an array of
[120] crimes, including illegal 0deforestation,
embezzlement and torture. It takes a great
deal for any member to be expelled from
Congress. One example: Hildebrando Pascoal,
a legislator convicted of operating a death
[125] squad whose victims were dismembered with
chain saws.
Few federal legislators ever face
imprisonment for any crimes because of the
special judicial standing enjoyed by all 594
[130] members of Congress allowing them to be tried
only in Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal,
effectively producing years of delays in a court
overwhelmed with examining many other
pressing issues in Brazilian society.
[135] After facing scandals in the past, the
figures now at the helm of Congress have
shown an exceptional ability to withstand the
allegations and resurrect their fortunes. Both
Mr. Calheiros, the head of the Senate, and Mr.
[140] Cunha, the head of the lower house, have
asserted that they are innocent in connection
to the bribery scheme at Petrobras.
From: http://www.nytimes.com April 27, 2015
The Petrobras scandal got near Ms. Rousseff when
