"I started to hit me after the first year and a half of Government. Dilma bombing government has begun too soon." With this reflection launched in the intimacy of a meeting with senators Workers Party (PT), former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, drew an unflattering horizon for its successor. The extornero, which retains a very strong influence within his party, has unexpectedly left the political arena to tackle a fire that threatens to spread, reaching the Planalto Palace.
The Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo published a report last week which tells the dramatic increase in personal wealth of the Minister for the Civil and right hand of the president, Antonio Palocci. Rains, it pours, as Palocci, Minister of Economy during the early years of the Lula government, which was responsible in 2006 of a scandal that included dyes Berlusconi parties with prostitutes, briefcases of money and allegations of violation of banking secrecy.
The episode ended with the resignation of Palocci and their disappearance from the political scene. Over time, the Supreme Court declared him innocent of the charges against him. There are still no hard evidence against Palocci, although the Brazilian press that the estate aerated suspiciously multiplied by 20 between 2006 and 2010.
According to documents leaked to the newspaper, the minister last year purchased a flat of 500 square meters in São Paulo valued at 6.6 billion reals (plus 2.8 million euros) and a shop worth of 882,000 reais (383,000 euros). So far no one has dared to utter a formal accusation that the opposition intends to articulate in Parliament: influence peddling.
Palocci, one of the strong men of the PT, has denied that these million-dollar purchases are due to unjust enrichment or inconsistent with his former position of deputy. The Minister of the Presidency has since 2006 a consulting firm whose capital has grown over the past five years and has served clients as "sensitive" as the Brazilian airlines Gol and Blue.
Both companies have grown brutal in recent years, mainly due to increased purchasing power of Brazilians and, consequently, of the middle class. The opposition is working hard to open a parliamentary inquiry to debug any irregularities, but all attempts were in vain because the parties allied to the government have succeeded in forming a common front to prevent the defendants went to thrive.
Lula himself remained for the last two days a series of meetings with senators of the PT party leaders allied to government, Dilma and the very affected by the allegations, to articulate the defense strategy. The slogan at the moment is to stop by all means any attempt to open an inquiry committee in Parliament.
According to PT, the data filtering Palocci heritage from the main opposition party, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), defeated by Lula, Dilma training in the last election. The President ordered yesterday to cancel the distribution of educational videos and pamphlets against homophobia by the Ministries of Education and Health.
The decision, a priori, intended to appease the anger of religious political groups (Protestants and Catholics in particular), but read by many of the Brazilian press suggested that the decision is directly related to the case Palocci and would represent a concession the Government to the religious caucus to gain their support in the armor of most relevant Minister of the Executive.
While this case seems to be far from being closed, the Brazilian prosecutor has just begun investigations into a possible crime of corruption involving the entrepreneur farmer José Carlos Bumlai, a friend of Lula. The suspicions are based on the allegation by the Office of the State of São Paulo, which claims to have hard evidence of fraudulent contracts between the companies Bumlai and the city of Campinas, the most important city in the interior of São Paulo. 
The Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo published a report last week which tells the dramatic increase in personal wealth of the Minister for the Civil and right hand of the president, Antonio Palocci. Rains, it pours, as Palocci, Minister of Economy during the early years of the Lula government, which was responsible in 2006 of a scandal that included dyes Berlusconi parties with prostitutes, briefcases of money and allegations of violation of banking secrecy.
The episode ended with the resignation of Palocci and their disappearance from the political scene. Over time, the Supreme Court declared him innocent of the charges against him. There are still no hard evidence against Palocci, although the Brazilian press that the estate aerated suspiciously multiplied by 20 between 2006 and 2010.
According to documents leaked to the newspaper, the minister last year purchased a flat of 500 square meters in São Paulo valued at 6.6 billion reals (plus 2.8 million euros) and a shop worth of 882,000 reais (383,000 euros). So far no one has dared to utter a formal accusation that the opposition intends to articulate in Parliament: influence peddling.
Palocci, one of the strong men of the PT, has denied that these million-dollar purchases are due to unjust enrichment or inconsistent with his former position of deputy. The Minister of the Presidency has since 2006 a consulting firm whose capital has grown over the past five years and has served clients as "sensitive" as the Brazilian airlines Gol and Blue.
Both companies have grown brutal in recent years, mainly due to increased purchasing power of Brazilians and, consequently, of the middle class. The opposition is working hard to open a parliamentary inquiry to debug any irregularities, but all attempts were in vain because the parties allied to the government have succeeded in forming a common front to prevent the defendants went to thrive.
Lula himself remained for the last two days a series of meetings with senators of the PT party leaders allied to government, Dilma and the very affected by the allegations, to articulate the defense strategy. The slogan at the moment is to stop by all means any attempt to open an inquiry committee in Parliament.
According to PT, the data filtering Palocci heritage from the main opposition party, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), defeated by Lula, Dilma training in the last election. The President ordered yesterday to cancel the distribution of educational videos and pamphlets against homophobia by the Ministries of Education and Health.
The decision, a priori, intended to appease the anger of religious political groups (Protestants and Catholics in particular), but read by many of the Brazilian press suggested that the decision is directly related to the case Palocci and would represent a concession the Government to the religious caucus to gain their support in the armor of most relevant Minister of the Executive.
While this case seems to be far from being closed, the Brazilian prosecutor has just begun investigations into a possible crime of corruption involving the entrepreneur farmer José Carlos Bumlai, a friend of Lula. The suspicions are based on the allegation by the Office of the State of São Paulo, which claims to have hard evidence of fraudulent contracts between the companies Bumlai and the city of Campinas, the most important city in the interior of São Paulo.
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