Last October President Dilma Rousseff was on the campaign trail in northeastern Brazil vowing to combat corruption. What stood out was the impeached former president next to her.
Two decades after former President Fernando Collor was impeached amid corruption allegations, the disgraced politician turned senator is back in the spotlight. Collor is among almost 50 lawmakers being investigated as part of an alleged kickback scheme at state-run oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA, according to a list released by the Supreme Court on March 6. Collor didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The story of President Fernando Collor -- who resigned in 1992 and then staged a comeback in 2006 when he was elected senator -- is one that’s repeated over and over in Brazilian politics. Almost a third of the previous Congress before the October elections, or 224 lawmakers, were under investigation for crimes ranging from abusing public auctions to embezzlement, according to Brasilia-based watchdog group Congress in Focus. Seventy-three of them, including Collor, were re-elected in October.
In this context, it’s easy to see how the scandal now engulfing Petrobras was able to spread unchecked for so long, said Aldo Musacchio, an associate professor of strategy at Brandeis International Business School in Waltham, Massachusetts. The decade-old tale of kickbacks, bribes and inflated construction contracts allegedly involved dozens if not hundreds of executives, politicians and black-market money dealers.
’On Repeat’
“What’s really sad is that we’ve seen this movie before -- it’s on repeat,” said Paulo Bilyk, chief investment officer of Rio Bravo, a Sao Paulo-based fund with $10 billion under management.
| It's Deja Vu in Brazil as Impeached Ex-President Investigated. read more |
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