On Monday, Temer became the nation’s first sitting president to be charged with graft and is now awaiting a final decision by the Supreme Court.

Attorney General Rodrigo Janot formally accused President Michel Temer and his aide Rodrigo Rocha Loures of corruption, charging them with receiving bribes from the head of the meatpacking giant JBS.

Criminal charges against a sitting president have to be approved by two-thirds of the lower house of Congress. A total of 341 out of the 513 lawmakers would have to vote in favor. Only then can the Supreme Court issue a conviction.

If approved by the lower house, Temer could be suspended for 90 days while awaiting impeachment proceedings.

In that scenario, the current House Speaker Rodrigo Maia would assume the presidency.

Temer, who was one of the main architects of a similar procedure against former the President Dilma Rousseff, has said he will not resign.

Just a few hours before the prosecutor’s office decision was confirmed, Temer said, “Nothing will destroy us, neither me nor my ministers.”

The president, eight of his ministers and other political allies and advisers are being investigated for alleged corruption in the country’s largest bribery scheme investigation called Operation Car Wash.

In May, a wiretapped conversation with businessman Joesley Batista, chairman of JBS, the largest meatpacking company in the country was released which appeared to show Temer endorsing bribes to potential witnesses in the investigation.

In the recording, Temer was heard saying after being informed that hush money was being paid to the former head of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, “Look, you’ve got to keep that up.”

Police alleged they had evidence against the president and confirmed the authenticity of the recordings, which Temer insists have been tampered with.

Temer also denied a report in a national magazine claiming that the country’s secret security service, known as Abin, spied on the judge in charge of the same corruption probe.

The president’s support has plummeted as he also faces protests against austerity measures. A survey by the DataFolha polling institute shows just 7 percent of those questioned approved of his administration, down from 9 percent in April.

Meanwhile, former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would win the 2018 presidential election, although his candidacy is not yet official, according to the DataFolha Institute.

Lula from the Workers’ Party maintains a leadership between 29 and 30 percent of the vote intention, followed by Marina Silva from Rede Sustainability and Jair Bolsonaro from the Social Christian Party.

teleSUR

The election campaign has lasted only a week, beginning with the resignation of the Speaker of the House, Severino Cavalcanti from the PP party of Pernambuco, last Wednesday, September 21, but it has been characterized by furious political jockeying.

Precisely because of the large number of candidates and all the jockeying, the situation is considered extremely fluid. According to Mozart Vianna, the Chamber secretary general, who will oversee the election, there may be last minute alliances with the result that someone will pull out of the race.

The election process gets underway this morning with each candidate having 15 minutes to present his platform. After that, voting will begin as soon as 257 deputies are present in the Chamber.

If no one gets a majority (257 votes) on the first vote, which is considered almost certain with ten candidates in the field, there will be a second vote between the two candidates with the most votes in the first vote.

It is expected that the new president will be known by 10 pm.

The ten candidates are: Aldo Rebelo (PC do B, São Paulo), José Thomáz Nonô (PFL, Alagoas), Michel Temer (PMDB, São Paulo), Ciro Nogueira (PP, Piauí­), Francisco Dornelles (PP, Rio de Janeiro), Wanderley Assis (PP, São Paulo), Jair Bolsonaro (PP, Rio de Janeiro), Luiz Antônio Fleury Filho (PTB, São Paulo), João Caldas (PL, Alagoas) and Alceu Colares (PDT, Rio Grande do Sul).

Agência Brasil

Brazilian Deputy Severino Cavalcanti, who was Brazil’s Speaker of the House (president of the Chamber of Deputies) resigned from the Congress. Cavalcanti was accused of extortion and receiving kickbacks from a restaurateur who did business in the congressional office building.

In the face of overwhelming evidence of his malfeasance, Cavalcanti resigned rather than face expulsion which would make him ineligible to run for office for eight years.

In fact, in a farewell speech, Cavalcanti promised to be back in 2006 when the next congressional elections will take place. “I will be back. The people of Pernambuco, once again, will not fail me,” he exclaimed.

Cavalcanti from the PP party is 74 years old and has been in politics for 40 years. He was mayor of his hometown, Joao Alfredo (pop. 27,000), state of Pernambuco, and then a state deputy for 28 years.

Since 1995 he has been in Brasí­lia as a federal deputy, where he became known as the King of the Lower Clergy (Rei do Baixo Clero), or leader of a group of members of congress famous for having little prominence and less power.

Cavalcanti was elected, with 300 votes, out of 513, to be president of the Chamber of Deputies (equivalent to Speaker of the House, and next in line to succeed the president after the vice president), on February 15.

He served as head of the Chamber for 218 days. His election was made possible by an internal division in the PT, which fielded two candidates, and the combined forces of the opposition and the lower clergy.

As president of the Chamber of Deputies, Cavalcanti worked hard to get a salary increase (which was not successful) and greater independence for the legislature (with mixed results).

Excerpts from his fareweel speech:

“Euclides da Cunhas’s words in Rebellion in the Backlands still echo in the remote lands of the Northeast: “The sertanejo or man of the backklands is above all else a strong individual”. All of us certainly have already heard this sentence during our life.

“And in view of what I am living at this moment, in face of the circumstances that surround me full of threats, contempt,  contention, lawsuits without a cause, I remind myself that the sertanejo is above all a strong individual, and try to remember what these words meant to me.

“Land poverty, man poverty.

“João Vicente Ferreira, my father, supported the family with difficulty, and early in life, like all the poor boys of the Northeast, I had to earn my own money and  help my family.

“I did not manage to go beyond first grade, because very early I had to get a job. I had to contribute, above all, to the education of my four sisters, which this way were able to graduate. 

“I did not find, therefore, the Northeast hardship through the books or through literature, I was born there, grew in the middle of the difficulties, in the land where the children, from early age, are strong sertanejos, because the have already tried everything – from the implacable inclemency of the landscape, and from the social inequality that segregates humankind, excluding the dispossessed from the benefits of the economy and citizenry.”

Agência Brasil

Severino Cavalcanti, the president of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies (equivalent to the Speaker of the House), who is accused of extortion and receiving bribes and kickbacks, should announce his resignation today, reports deputy João Caldas from the Alagoas state PL party.

Acording to Caldas, Cavalcanti is calm, still pondering his decision. Caldas, who visited Cavalcanti at his residence yesterday, added that nothing was said about who the new president of the Chamber could be.

According to the Brazilian legislation the president of the Chamber of Deputies is next in line in the presidential succession after the vice president.

Caldas said that members of the Chamber of Deputies were aware of the importance of the moment and were conscious of the need to protect the institution.

Caldas said that Cavalcanti’s meeting with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva yesterday was cordial. “They discussed the situation as part of a problem within the democratic process,” he said.

ABr

The president of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies Ethics Council, Ricardo Izar, postponed until today the opening of the disciplinary process calling for the mandate of the president of the Chamber, Severino Cavalcanti, to be revoked, on account of corruption.

The motion was filed with the Council last week by five opposition parties. “We shall have to wait until Wednesday morning, given the possibility of the president’s resignation. In which case, there will be no need for us to initiate the process,” the president of the Council contends.

It is expected that Cavalcanti will offer his resignation today. According to congressman João Caldas this should happen this afternoon. The House Speaker’s decision follows a week in which he was accused of extorting money from a restaurateur in order to allow the businessman to sell food in the Congress building in Brasí­lia, the capital of Brazil.

Caldas said that Severino seems to be serene. “Everything is ready for the announcement. Severino still has a few hours before he makes the announcement,” commented the legislator. He also informed that Cavalcanti has not talked about his succession.

Inquiry

By Thursday, September 22, the General Disciplinary Office of the Chamber of Deputies wants to hear the defense of the 16 deputies cited in the combined report of the Joint Parliamentary Investigative Commissions (CPMIs) on the Post Office and Vote Buying.

The General Disciplinary Office decided to hear the legislators after the Federal Supreme Court (STF) granted an injunction that prohibits forwarding the motion calling for their mandates to be revoked to the Ethics Council, until they have an opportunity to address the Congress. The legislators have a period of 5 legislative sessions, from the time they are notified, to present their defense, which can also be submitted in writing.

The first to be heard, Tuesday, September 20, was deputy Pedro Henry from the PP party of Mato Grosso state. Ex-deputy Roberto Jefferson affirmed that Henry was one of those who received monthly allowance payments (the “mensalão”) to vote with the government and that he pressed the PTB to accept the money. Henry once again denied the accusations and requested that the motion against him be shelved.

Agência Brasil

The wheels of justice continue to turn in Brazil. Even though the Brazilian Speaker of the House, Severino Cavalcanti, remains secluded in his official residence for a second day, reportedly pondering his political future his case has arrived at the Supreme Court.

Cavalcanti seems torn about what to do. Resign?. But, resign what? The presidency of the Chamber of Deputies? Or his seat in the Chamber of Deputies to avoid expulsion?  Under Brazilian legislation, as a federal deputy he can only be tried by the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, a report by handwriting experts on the concession contract extension that Cavalcanti is accused of signing only after the concessionaire agreed to pay bribes and kickbacks in order to continue operating restaurants and snack bars in the congressional office building, has been delayed until next week. Cavalcanti says he did not sign the document and that his signature is forged.

Undeterred by the handwriting expert report delay, Cavalcanti’s accuser brought forth a much more damaging document on Wednesday – a check made out to, and cashed by, one of Cavalcanti’s secretaries. That check has practically sealed Cavalcanti’s immediate political fate: he will probably have to resign from something.

And if he ever does go on trial before the Supreme Court, it now looks like he could be charged with extortion and active corruption.

Agência Brasil