Corruption crisis hits Brazil’s interim gov’t.
BRASILIA — The fanfare during the weekend over the Olympic Games currently underway in Rio de Janiero did little to distract prosecutors working on one of the largest corruption probes ever seen in Brazil — as both interim-President Michel Temer and Foreign Minister José Serra have both been implicated in the latest leaks from the investigation into the corruption scandal at state oil firm Petrobras.
In a further sign that the Petrobras scandal may swallow Brazil’s entire political class, having already ousted suspended President Dilma Rousseff’s Workers Party (PT) from power, popular national magazine Veja claimed on Saturday that jailed Brazilian construction magnate Marcelo Odebrecht told prosecutors in a plea bargain testimony that he contributed US$1.8 million illegally to Temer’s 2014 election campaign, and other executives from the Odebrecht group claimed they handed over almost US$7.25 million in cash to Serra’s failed 2010 presidential campaign, newspaper Folha de São Paulo reported yesterday.
Defeated by Rousseff, Serra was appointed Brazil’s foreign minister by Temer after he took over from her when she was suspended in May pending an impeachment trial. Also defeated by Rousseff’s predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in 2002, Serra is widely believed to be preparing for a third try at the presidency in 2018.
Odebrecht, whose family owns Latin America’s largest engineering and construction group, was sentenced in March to 19 years in jail for bribery, money-laundering and organized crime in the Petrobras kickback scandal.
In a plea-bargain statement seen by Veja, Odebrecht said Temer asked him for campaign funds in 2014 when the latter was vice-president and seeking re-election on the ticket of the now-suspended Rousseff.
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