Paulo Whitaker/Reuters
Ex-President ‘Lula’ Joins Brazil’s Cabinet, Gaining
Legal Shield
Fonte / Source: The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/world/americas/brazil-ex-president-luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva.html?ref=world&_r=0
RIO DE JANEIRO — Faced with multiple corruption investigations,Brazil’s
former president, Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva, is joining the cabinet of his successor, Dilma
Rousseff, in a move that may offer him increased legal protections
but intensifies the political upheaval in Latin America’s largest country.
Mr. da Silva, 70, will become Ms. Rousseff’s chief of staff, said
Afonso Florence, the leader of the governing Workers’ Party in the Chamber of
Deputies.
Mr. da Silva, a founder of the Workers’ Party and its most
towering figure, is thrusting himself into a government that is lurching from
one crisis to another. The economy is reeling from a bad slump and major
corruption scandals. Ms. Rousseff is struggling for her own political survival,
with protesters demanding her ouster and lawmakers pursuing impeachment
proceedings against her.
“Vested with the
unprecedented function of a de facto prime minister, Lula will oversee an act
of political desperation to save what’s left of his project,” said Igor Gielow,
a columnist for the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.
The move could offer Mr. da Silva some practical protection as prosecutors
seek his arrest in a graft inquiry involving his ties to giant construction
companies. Cabinet ministers are among the 700 or so senior officials in Brazil
who enjoy special judicial standing, meaning they can be tried only by Brazil’s
highest court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal.
Effectively, this prevents nearly all of these figures from going
to prison, because trials at the court drag on for years. Nearly a third of the
594 members of Congress, including the leaders of the lower house and the
Senate, are under scrutiny before the court over claims of violating laws.
Mr. da Silva, who was president from 2003 through 2010, is
grappling with various investigations into his accumulation of wealth since
leaving office. Stunning the political establishment, he was taken into custody for questioning
this month in a federal inquiry into renovations of luxury properties by O.A.S.
and Odebrecht, two scandal-plagued construction companies.
Demonstrators in São Paulo, Brazil, on Sunday [13mar2016] called for the resignation of the president amid an economic crisis and corruption scandals. Miguel Schincariol/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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Mr. da Silva has insisted that he is innocent of any wrongdoing,
describing the inquiries as attempts to destabilize Ms. Rousseff’s government
and prevent him from returning to the presidency. He has recently begun
mounting a bid to run again in 2018, denouncing political opponents and critics
in the news media.
But upon taking up his post, he will have to start with damage
control. Delcídio do Amaral, a senator from the Workers’ Party, reached a plea
deal with investigators in which he accused Mr. da Silva and Ms. Rousseff of
obstructing corruption investigations.
“I am a prophet of chaos,” Mr. do Amaral told reporters after the
Supreme Federal Tribunal accepted his plea deal, in which he implicated figures
across the ideological spectrum in graft scandals, including Vice President
Michel Temer and Aécio Neves, a leader of the opposition Social Democracy
Party.
While Brasília braces for the return of Mr. da Silva to the daily
political fray, others around the country are trying to decipher what comes
next. Brazil’s currency, the real, fell sharply against the dollar on
Wednesday, and the main index of the São Paulo stock exchange dropped nearly 1
percent on concerns over potential shifts in economic policy under Mr. da
Silva.
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