From Rio de Janeiro
A month from now, on Sunday October 2, the few more than 156 million Brazilian voters – one and a half times the population of Mexico, more than three times that of Argentina – they will elect president, governors, Congress and regional Assemblies.
The polls continue to indicate the former president Lula da Silva (photo) as a favourite, with the current one standing at least 10% away. The latest results indicate that the possibility of Lula being elected in the first round has diminished, and that Bolsonaro and the other candidates do not have much room to take flight. Hence, the importance of debates and interviews on open television channels is considered.
interviews
Thus, Lula’s interview with the chain Globo, eternal adversary of the leftist leader, was considered even by adversaries as a success. In relation to Bolsonaro, both in the interview and in a debate organized by a pool of media, her participation literally corresponded to what was expected. He was furious and out of control, attacked a journalist and two senators reiterating his aggressiveness against women in general, lied compulsively, denounced Lula as corrupt and assured that in the current government corruption disappeared or is limited to isolated cases.
And then, in the days that followed, memories of past events and evidence of the new great farce.
Memory: there was a Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, denounced for collusion with illegal loggers to smuggle wood abroad.
Orders for bribes for the acquisition of vaccines against Covid were verified and verified (Discovered in time, the scheme was disarmed, but due to complaints from the opposition and not at the initiative of the president, who, informed by parliamentarians, remained ignorant, or perhaps complicit).
Of Bibles and bribes
Self-appointed evangelical pastors scattered throughout the Ministry of Education in the face of the complicit omission of the then minister, who claimed to have approached them at the “suggestion” of the president, they demanded bribes that ranged from the acquisition of thousands of copies of the Bible to cash donations to release resources from municipalities provided for by law.
It was verified and proven that the “Secret Budget”, created to distribute resources everywhere without any control in order to obtain support to elect not only Bolsonaro, but also his allies, is drowning in overpriced purchases.
And now another complaint has exploded that puts Bolsonaro’s “honesty” to the ground once and for all: two journalists from the UOL website, linked to the newspaper San Pablo leafafter an exhaustive investigation showed that the presidential clan participated, since 1993, in no less than 107 real estate transactions.
The current president, three of his children, an ex-wife, an ex-brother-in-law, his four brothers and even his deceased mother participated in this intense avalanche of more than doubtful buying and selling.
Cash transactions, or as they say in Brazil, “living money”, are striking.
When deposits or bank transfers occurred, it was detected that what was declared as payment corresponded, invariablyless than half of the true market value of the property.
Cash
In Brazil, cash transactions involving large sums are common among drug traffickers, smugglers, treasury thugs and criminals in general.
The legislation imposes strict control over movements that exceed one hundred thousand dollars, when it is required to verify the origin of the money. Unless of course they happen in cash: There is no way to control there, unless those involved indicate where the resources come from.
The clan – father and children with the participation of one of his ex-wives and her relatives – was already accused of put together a scheme of “ghosts” in their parliamentary cabinets (Before presiding over the country, Bolsonaro was a national deputy for three decades) and keep up to 80% of his income.
Well: they were mobilized only in real estate transactions a little less than six million dollars, in updated values.
In terms of corruption in a government, it is little. But For those who earn, also in updated values, about six thousand dollars a month – 72 thousand a year – investing all that money in real estate is something, let’s say, difficult to explain.
Although it is admitted that all together – father, children, ex-wives, brothers, grandmother – are luminous magicians in managing money, it sounds strange.
Bolsonaro knows that, by losing the immunity that the presidency assures him, You will have to render an account to Justice.
And now he knows that, in addition to all the crimes he committed while he deposited his body in the presidential chair, he will have to explain his method of multiplying money.
He knows that the farce runs the immense risk of being crushed by the truth.
Y that’s why it gets more and more out of control every hour of every day.