Beware Backward Steps in Brazil's Corruption Fight

10/24/2017 - 12h53

More than three years of brutal investigations into political corruption under the banner of "Operation Car Wash", the investigation that started with state-owned oil company Petrobras, have shaken up Brazilian politics. Powerful politicians for the first time have been plucked from office, convicted and jailed, such as Eduardo Cunha, the once indomitable speaker of the lower house.

But last week, one of the other great operators in congress, Senator Aécio Neves, helped by a sympathetic supreme court now stacked with appointees of the government of President Michel Temer, showed that things may not have changed as much as people were hoping.

Mr Neves, a one-time presidential candidate and leader of the centre-right PSDB, who almost beat former president Dilma Rousseff in 2014, was secretly taped by businessman Joesley Batista allegedly requesting R$2m ($620,000) in bribes. Mr Neves later claimed the money was a loan to help pay for his legal fees.

The supreme court had decided to remove him from office pending an investigation so that he could not use his position to interfere with the process. It had previously done this with Mr Cunha and another prominent senator. But then, inexplicably, it decided to give the last word to the senate to decide whether he should be suspended. The senate, which is stacked with people also under investigation, decided to maintain Mr Neves.

Even Ms Rousseff`s Workers' party, the PT, supported the senator during one part of the debate. Its leader, Gleisi Hoffmann, is also under investigation, giving it a common interest in protecting Mr Neves. For his part, Mr Neves has argued he has not been convicted of anything and therefore should not suffer any form of punishment.

No wonder that Sérgio Moro, the campaigning judge behind Operation Car Wash, looked a bit depressed when he appeared on Globo TV last week. "Those who adopt this posture of trying to put a brake on processes to crack down on corruption are adopting a shameful posture," he said.

Shameful perhaps, but highly typical of Brazil's political classes. If the anti-corruption drive is to survive, sustained public pressure will be key.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017