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 My apartment overlooks an intersection in the center of Santo Antônio de Jesus, a small city in the Brazilian Northeast. At about 8 AM every morning, cars with large speakers fixed on their roofs edge pass my window while blaring advertisements. I try to ignore them, but last week an ad caught my attention - the governor was coming.
Paulo Souto, the governor of Bahia, was coming for an "unofficial" campaign stop on Saturday, March 11th. The event promised to be tedious and propaganda stuffed - he was scheduled to sign agreements promising state funding to municipal programs - but my work schedule was free, so I decided to go. Some quick Internet research sweetened the proposition. A cover story on the Brazilian magazine, Carta Capital, accused the governor and his political ally, the federal senator Antonio Carlos Magalhães (ACM), of conspiring to rip-off a pension fund. According to the article, Paulo Souto and ACM worked together to convince "Previ", the pension fund for the retirees of Brazil's largest bank, Banco do Brasil, to invest in the construction of a luxury resort, Costa Sauípe, that was built on the northern coast of Bahia. The pension fund ended up paying R$ (Brazilian reais) 1 billion (US$ 471 million) for the construction of the resort, which is currently valued at approximately R$ 172 million (US$ 81 million) - meaning the investment lost close to R$ 830 million (US$ 390 million). According to Carta Capital, it will be decades before Previ can make a profit from the resort. Interesting, but vague. The online article didn't have more details - but it had given enough fuel to my over-active imagination. My mind's DVD player kicked into full-gear. The film went like this: Scene: A room full of the governor cheering supporters. Paulo Souto has just finished his speech, and now it's time for questions. One by one, local hack journalists, all loyal to the governor and his party (the real journalists didn't bother to attend) ask a series of softball questions. "Why is Bahia growing?" (Because my government is so competent) "What will you do to help the poor? (Generate jobs and promote social inclusion), "Will Brazil win the World Cup? (Yes, after drubbing Argentina 5 - 0 in the final) Then comes my turn. "Would you please respond to the accusations recently published in Carta Capital that you and your ally, ACM, "decisively intervened" in the decision by a government pension fund to make a risky investment in the resort Costal Sauípe, which ended up costing the fund 830 million reais?" There would be a moment of shocked silence while the adoring crowd tries to determine how this mole with an American accent snuck into their pep rally. Then the governor would answer, and answer smoothly - he is a politician after all. But the joy would be in the question. "O Coronel da Bahia" In Bahia, no one asks hard questions of the ACM clan and their party, the PFL (The Liberal Front Party). This is an old story to anyone who follows Brazilian politics: Currently a federal senator, ACM "the colonel of Bahia" and his allies have dominated state politics with a corrupt party machine since the time of the dictatorship. The airport in Salvador is named after his late son, a city highway, a plaza, and innumerable schools, hospitals, and buss stations across the state bear the name Magalhães. The Magalhães family owns the state's largest television network, TV Bahia, and PFL propaganda spews out of the mouths of the station's would-be journalists. Salvador, the capital of Bahia, has three daily newspapers. The Magalhães family operates the second largest newspaper, O Correio da Bahia. The day after Hamas's shocking victory in the Palestine elections was announced, newspapers all over the world carried the story on their front page. Not so with O Correio. They went local with "Birthday party of ACM's grandson is national event". ACM Neto (neto translates as grandson) had much to celebrate - elected to congress by his grandfather's political machine, he was selected at only 27 years of age, and with minimal qualifications, to co-lead a prestigious congressional committee set-up to investigate the corruption scandals of the governing Worker's Party (PT). Do a Google search under the terms "Magalhães", "Brazil" and "corruption" to see just how ironic that selection was. So, it seemed my moment of journalistic glory had come. I would have a shot at a figure near the top of the ACM machine - Paulo Souto. In his second term as governor (the first was from 1995 to 1998) Souto is viewed as ACM's right hand man - the most powerful man in Bahia besides the senator himself. Sure, my efforts to interrogate Mr. Souto would be of absolutely no consequence in the grander scheme of things, but one tends to lose perspective after prolonged exposure to the blaring sun of the Brazilian Northeast. Power and Electricity The room was indeed crowded - packed to standing room only in area that held several hundred sweat drenched bodies. Scheduled to begin at 10:00, the event didn't get started till 11:30 (insert your own joke about Latin/Brazilian/Bahian sense of time here). I took advantage of the lull to ask those in attendance while they were there. The largest group was about 200 women from a local "Sem Teto" or "roofless" organization. They were present to see if the governor would follow through on promises for housing reform. "I came here to listen to the governor, to hear what he will offer us," said a woman from Sem-Teto who was too shy to give her name. When his entourage arrived, I heard a series of loud pops and jumped, still unaccustomed to the Brazilian habit of setting off fireworks at every hint of a celebration. A drummer taped a steady beat, and Paulo Souto walked in surrounded by a cluster of microphones and radio reporters. Bald and pink faced, Souto grimaced and seemed about ready to throw a punch. He maintained this sour expression despite the group of 20 or so over- excited women that chanted his name while he approached. Once Souto took the stage, the tedium began. One by one, all the local state and municipal representatives thanked the governor for coming and gave campaign speeches of their own. Souto stood with arms crossed and his lips pursed and pushed downward - the kind of expression you see a man (or a post-menopausal woman) use when trying to shave a mustache. His long face - wrinkled brow, sunken eyes, worried glance, seemed to convey more then the ho-hum being babbled by his side. He relaxed as the event went on, and even waved to the crowd. He did not smile. A mayor from a nearby town told a story of how he first met Souto that revealed more than was intended. The speaker recalled winning his first election as a state representative by promising to bring electricity to his representatives. He won convincingly, and shortly after was invited to appear at "The Palace at Ondina", the stylish apartment in the center of Salvador where ACM, then the governor of Bahia, holds his most important meetings. During the meeting, the political boss complimented the newbie on his recent success, and spoke well of his future in the party. The newbie asked a favor, "My representatives need electricity." ACM responded that it would be done, and referred his newly acquired ally to Paulo Souto - who was then the Secretary for Mines and Energy for the State of Bahia. At their later meeting, Paulo Souto was brisk with the state representative, "You'll get your electricity as quickly as you can get out of here." The next day, the state controlled utility company called the state representative, and arrangements were made for the installation. It occurred successfully, and later the state representative became a mayor. Moral of the story #1: ACM and Paulo Souto are great guys who get the job done!
Moral of the story #2: Remain loyal to ACM, or your people won't get government services, and you'll lose your job. The Lecture Paulo Souto took the stage about a half-hour into the event. His speaking style stood in stark contrast to those who preceded - where as the other politicians had shouted, raised their fists in the air, and stirred the crowd into wild applause, Souto lectured. With his glasses on, he plowed through economic statistics, and it was not hard to remember that before he was ever governor, or Secretary of Mines and Energy, Paulo Souto had been Professor Souto, a respected Geologist at the Federal University of Bahia. His university peers were shocked when Souto teamed up with ACM, who is nearly universally detested by intellectuals. Yet their political marriage has had its rough times - last election cycle, ACM reportedly wanted an increasingly independent Souto dropped from the PFL ticket, but when it became clear that Souto could run and win without his elder's approval, ACM relented. Also, while ACM's career reads like a criminal record (minus the convictions), Souto has kept his image remarkably clean for being the understudy of Brazil's most noxiously corrupt Senator. Politics lacks policy in Brazil, so it was a relief to hear a lecture, and not another sermon. The speech ended, and the few journalists present crowed around Souto, and began to ask questions. Bahia largest newspaper, the timidly independent A Tarde, had declined to send their local reporter. The day before, I had asked the A Tarde reporter, Cristina Santos, what she knew about the event, and in response she pulled a crinkled up paper ball from her trash can and unraveled it. "Here's the schedule, we don't attend events that are so institutional. There is no news here, he's just making promises." Not even TV Bahia had attended, for an interplanetary event had intervened. The week before, a meteor had crashed near a hamlet about six miles away from Santo Antonio. It ripped through several trees and caused a small brushfire before disintegrating. "Since the meteor crashed, our reporters have been incredibly busy," said the secretary at the local TV Bahia branch. "We simply do not have the available personnel." So the governor had to be content with a few radio reporters, and one American mal-content. Now was the time. But my goal would not be easily achieved - there was a wall of people between me and him, and a half dozen feisty reporters armed with tape recorders. A wave of anxiety came over me. I hate shoving my way through people, but isn't that what reporters do? Aren't political reporters supposed to be self-important jerks covering other self-important jerks? I wiggled my way to a spot that stood between the governor and the stairs descending the stage. The reporters shot out questions, and I realized that I was going to have to join the shouting match in the hopes that I would be heard. (Just like on those televised press conferences!) When the word "Carta Capital" left my mouth, the governor turned towards me. I repeated the question, and stretched my digital recorder in his direction. "Could you please respond to the accusations published earlier this week in Carta Capital?" "I think it was absolutely ridiculous," said the governor. "I continue to have a positive attitude about bringing investment and employment to Bahia, and the government is always beside those who want to invest in our state. "That said, the responsibility for the investment - whether there is profit or not, that is the problem of each investor. It is exactly because we [the state government] are active in bringing investment to this state that Bahia is growing twice as fast as Brazil." Fair enough. Political leaders have increasing become real estate agents in the global economy - trying to convince investors to drop their magic loads in home territory. The real question boils down to the type of influence used - did ACM or Paulo Souto have some improper or illegal insider connection with the pension fund? Sold Out I wanted to ask Souto a follow-up question, but without more information I was left limp, unable to move in for the kill. I had spent the hour before the event zipping around the city on a motorcycle taxi in frantic search for full article in the print edition of Carta Capital, but received the same response from magazine stand after magazine stand, "We're out, try somewhere else" This would seem normal - Bahians would buy the magazine because it featured an investigative story on their most famous politician. Yet, I was wary - the last time Carta Capital did an investigative feature on ACM's corrupt practices (way back in November of 2005) I was in Salvador, and found it impossible to obtain a copy. "We are suspicious, but we don't have any proof", said the editor in chief of Carta Capital, Mauricio Stycer, during our phone interview. "The last time we did a story on ACM we sold out, 95% of the copies we sent to Bahia were bought, which is well above the average. "Now, we don't know if someone is buying them all, we would have to catch someone in the act of doing it. This time we sent more copies, but we still received a lot of complaints from people unable to get a hold of one." When I was unable to come up with a follow-up question, Paulo Souto made his way through the crowd and entered the vehicle of choice for politicians all over the developing world - a mammoth black SUV, in this case a Ford Explorer. On Monday, March 13, Carta Capital would make the full article available on its webpage - http://www.cartacapital.com.br/index.php?funcao=exibirMateria&id_materia=41 - with a message included at the bottom. "This article was originally published in the edition 383 of Carta Capital. Due to the many readers who could not find the latest edition in the magazine stands of Bahia, we have made the complete article available on our site." The article itself, written by Leandro Fortes, makes only one thing clear - the deal that lead the pension fund of the Banco do Brasil to invest an astounding 1 billion reais in the construction of a luxury resort was at the least murky, and very likely illegal. Why, for instance, did Paulo Souto send a letter to the fund managers thanking them for the investment a full five months before the investment was made? Why didn't the fund managers order a technical evaluation of the project, as was the norm? Why did a construction project that was originally supposed to cost R$ 204 million later climb to R$ 284 million, and then to R$ 1 billion? Did all the money go to construction? A lot of questions, but Paulo Souto won't have to answer any of them, and neither will his political boss, ACM. He Spoke So Beautifully When I was leaving Paulo Souto speech, I saw the woman from Sem-Teto I had spoken with earlier, and asked her what she though of the speech. "It was great, absolutely marvelous because he spoke so beautifully. I just hope he does something to help the poor now," she said. There was not a word spoken about housing reform, but she was content, and my job was finished. Jared Goyette lives in Santo Antonio de Jesus, Bahia, Brazil. His blog can be found at http://bahiacorrespondent.blogspot.com/, his email is jaredmgo [at] gmail - dot - com
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