Lupi catches bullet
I won’t resign and I won’t be sacked. I have the President’s full support. I guarantee it won’t happen…It will take a bullet to get me out of the ministry. And it will have to be a big bullet, because I’m a big guy. – Carlos Lupi, 8th November 2011.
Politics and corruption in Brazil appear to be intimately linked.
Brazil’s Labour minister, Carlos Lupi, announced his resignation yesterday. This makes him the 6th minister to resign because of corruption allegations since President Dilma Rousseff came to power (at the start of 2011). Lupi’s resignation comes after more than a month of allegations and revelations. As the quote above illustrates, this guy is quite a character. In response to the outcry to that followed the above quote, he made another statement apologising to the president:
“President Dilma, I am sorry if I was aggressive, that was not my intention. I love you. I am sorry”. Wow, what a way to clean up your mess! This guy must use jam to clean up a wine spill…
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| Carlos Lupi – allegedly demanded kickbacks from charities and NGOs who were to receive funding from his Labour ministry. With that angelic face it’s hard to believe isn’t it? |
This latest corruption saga started a little over a month ago when Veja magazine alleged that Lupi and his ministry were demanding kickbacks from NGOs in return for funding. Lupi apparently accepted a free jet flight to meet the head of an NGO, Adair Meira, who went on to win huge government contracts with the Labour Ministry.
Lupi vociferously denied these allegations, stating categorically and aggressively that he had never taken such a flight and told a congressional panel that he had never even met Meira. Then a video surfaced showing him disembarking the jet he never took, and meeting the guy he had never met – Cara de Pau! I know that YouTube comments aren’t known for their eloquence, but I thought this was rather good:
“The lie was obvious by this man’s audacity – pretending not to remember the name that was mentioned so many times in the media: Adair Meira …Forgetting the name only served to confirm the blame… Each time I am more sickened by this gang of leeches…”
I am still struggling to really get to grips with the level of political corruption in Brazil. It seems that corruption is accepted, perhaps even unavoidable given the current system. A huge proportion of Brazil’s politicians have cases of wrongdoing pending. And certainly there has been a long history of corruption in Brazil. Back in the 1950s, Adhemar de Barros, governor of São Paulo, was so open about his profiteering that he allowed his supporters to defend him (successfully) with the moto Rouba mas faz – He steals, but he achieves!
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| “I depart with my conscience at ease, with my personal honesty intact, knowing that the truth will always win out.” – They always say that don’t they? |
But of course Brazil is not the only country with corruption and actually compares well to similar (in terms of size and wealth) countries such as India, China and Russia. As the Economist put it, “Brazil is blessed with competitive and aggressive media and tenacious institutions that investigate such scandals”. And the fact that corrupt politicians who get caught are finally being forced from office seems like progress.
Most encouragingly, Dilma, who so far appears clean, is benefiting from this apparent clean up. Voters clearly think the president is forcing these resignations and her approval rate is up to 70%. Whether the root causes of the corruption can be fixed remains to be seen.
I always say it's like driving in Brazil and following the speed, signal, and lane laws. If you do, you will be the one ending up in an accident. Likewise, politians who try to do good are usually kept out of the 'winner's' circle.
Hi Anon – I've also heard this. It seems that the game is setup so that it is impossible to get anywhere or achieve anything if you don't stretch, bend or break the rules. This is a paradox – you have to be corrupt to get to a position where you could make changes to prevent corruption! Having said that it seems that Lula and Dilma both walked a pretty decent line through this mess – hopefully the improvements will continue.
Lula pretty much nominated all of these guys, then Dilma fired them.
I think Lula was very forgiving towards corruption during his government. In fact many cases were seen by him and his party, to which Dilma is a recent arrival, as just run of the mill affairs.
I remember when it was disclosed that Mr. José Sarney, at the time senate president and ally, was using senate funds to, amongst other things, hire relatives left and right. Lula's defense of Sarney was quite revealing since he classified the infractor as "not a common person" and hence not subject to the same consequences. I found the comment below to an article dealing with this occurrence (linked) to be on target when it comes to Lula and his view towards governance.
"Lula pode não ser originalmente um coronel, mas não há dúvidas de que politicamente age como um"
http://perspectivapolitica.com.br/2009/06/20/sarney-nao-e-uma-pessoa-comum-uma-das-maiores-gafes-de-lula/
I would though disagree that Lula is more lenient and prone to shotcuts than Braziian society is in general. I think a very backward mindset regarding rules, and the scope of people they should apply to, seem to reign in Brazil. Well, to be fair, in all of Latin America. Obviously if you ask an average Brazilian how rules should be enforced they will tell you that they must apply to all, in equal measure, as should be the case for punishment. Yet it does not seem to be the way they themselves live their lives: parking where it is convenient, not following thru on agreements, having a very defensive stance regarding criticism (contructive or not) which makes correcting bad habits difficult, and so on.
But one thing is for sure, Brazilian institutions devised to curb corruption have been gaining in momentum for almost two decades now, which is great. Plus culture, in my opinion, is not written in stone so what is accepted behavior today can change.
I would though not disregard that Brazil may end up reaching first world numbers ( GDP per head, schooling, etc) and still retain many of these vices. This seem to be the case of countries like Spain, Italy, Portugal and so on. I hope this doesn't happen and in the end Brazil will be able to move beyond the cultures that most influenced her during colonization and immigration.
Gritty, I'm with you on a lot of these points. But I think this 'double standards' thing regarding rules is common across the world, human nature even – most people agree with rules in principle, but when it comes to personally suffering penalties or changing their behaviour accordingly, many complain or don't comply.
I guess the issue is that the corruption here is endemic and institutionalised. I don't think it would be possible to change that overnight. I'll be interested to see what happens to Lupi – if people who get caught can still make it back into politics (as happened so much in the past) then they're still only doing half the job.