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 While the Brazilian Lower House bickers about who will be the successor of House Speaker Severino Cavalcanti, the leaderships of the main parties are already discussing on another level: they are interested in knowing who will be the presidential candidate for next year's election, which will also depend on the election of the Speaker of the House.
The connection is simple: if the PT is able to get Arlindo Chinaglia or anybody else, it will mean the beginning of a slow but possible recovery of the party, ready to launch itself in the campaign for the re-election of president Lula. In case José Thomaz Nonô becomes the new Speaker of the House, however, the opposition alliance PSDB-PFL will have been quite reinforced, benefiting São Paulo mayor José Serra or São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin, from the toucans (the PSDB party), or César Maia, from the liberal side (PFL).
In a third hypothesis, if Michel Temer is the winner, the PMDB will get the role of succession wild card, meaning that whoever the party supports will have a good chance of winning the presidency whether they present their own candidate or not.
What is also being debated is the possibility of a third way working out: in this case, the chosen wouldn't be either a toucan or President Lula, but someone able to become an option between six and the half-dozen represented by the Workers Party and the former president Cardoso's party, the PSDB.
In such a scenario, those on the left will be the first focus of attention: who would be that candidate with proposals opposing neoliberalism? Roberto Freire, already launched by the PPS? Ciro Gomes, from the PSB? Heloísa Helena, from the P-SOL? Or someone from the PMDB, where Anthony Garotinho, Germano Rigotto and Roberto Requião dispute without the leftist label?
Translating all of this: the selection of the new Speaker of the House brings into play next year's presidential elections.
Where the Money Came From
It is undeniable the assistance that the CPIs (Congressional Inquiries) are providing the institutions, investigating, hearing and even showing part of the great festival of scandals fostered by the government, by the PT and their allies. Except for the sometimes grotesque show of congressmen who do not know how to ask a question, but just wish to promote themselves, the truth is that the Post Office, the Mensalão (Big Monthly Allowance) and the Bingos CPIs are contributing to the fight against corruption.
The problem is that no CPI managed to get an answer to the main question: where did the money to pay mensalões, buy votes, deputies and parties come from? There is no certainty about the main source, that is, whether the resources came from publicity contracts and overbilled services of public companies with private companies; whether they resulted from loans that were never going to be paid, made by private banks in exchange for illicit favors like huge pension funds being deposited in their safes, or whether the money came from donations of groups and even governments like Taiwan, Farc or Muammar Gadafi.
The most probable is that that mud river has been fed by all the aforementioned tributaries and a few more that we are not aware of. PT treasurer Delúbio Soares, adman Marcos Valério and, without any doubt, former Chief of Staff José Dirceu know very well where this money came from. It came? It is good to watch out the tense of the verb, being important to discover the source, with all the consequences.
In Free Fall
The public opinion is usually slow in their reactions and judgments, much more than the published opinion. Anyway, it is unforgiving. The masses, especially, take time to notice any phenomenon. This represents a valuable quality since it does neither keep oscillating like an airport windsock nor does it allow itself to be led by the last heard comment.
The polls conducted since the mensalão scandal surfaced leave no doubt about the President's situation. Week after week Lula's and the government's popularity keeps going down. What once seemed unquestionable has become a question mark. I'm talking about the re-election of the President. Reduced to smithereens the PT, which used to be Mister Ethics, has 91 House representatives, but this number will hardly reach 40 come the elections.
The government's image keeps fading away day after day, worn out due to the continue use of neoliberal politics and to the false propaganda that unemployment is going down. Because it is not. Unless you're talking about the Silva family.
For all of this, the tenants of Palácio do Planalto suffer at each new poll. If things keep going the way they are soon we will get mad men suggesting that Lula ban the release of new numbers. How? Cutting the recalcitrant publications who insist on publishing bad news from the government's ad budget.
Carlos Chagas writes for the Rio’s daily Tribuna da Imprensa and is a representative of the Brazilian Press Association, in Brasília. He welcomes your comments at carloschagas@hotmail.com.
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For the remaining amounts, no one will ever know as long as your "justice" give a habeus corpus to the pollticians investigated !!!
That protect them to give the truth to the investigators !!!!
BUT AGAIN, WHO CARES AS NOBODY WILL BE PUNISHED, FINED OR EXPULSED ANYWAY ????
SOME SAID IT ALL :IT WILL ALL END UP IN THE PIZZA...AS USUAL...WELL COOKED !!!!