The Economist Asia Edition – July 27, 2019

30 TheEconomistJuly 27th 2019

1

I

f there isone thing voters wanted from

Jair Bolsonaro when they elected him

Brazil’s president last October it was to end

corruption. When he was a right-wing con-

gressional backbencher, his fulminations

against “os corruptos” helped make him

famous. In his inauguration speech on Jan-

uary 1st he promised to “free the country

from the yoke of corruption”.

Now, his plans to keep his most impor-

tant campaign promise are failing. That is

because his administration looks nearly as

scandal-prone as the one it replaced. One

of his sons, Flávio, a senator from Rio de Ja-

neiro (pictured left), is being investigated

for money-laundering. Messages leaked to

the Intercept, an investigative news web-

site, have damaged the reputation of Sérgio

Moro, the justice minister, who is in charge

of fighting corruption and crime. They

show that Mr Moro collaborated improper-

ly with prosecutors when he was the judge

in charge of the vast Lava Jato anti-corrup-

tion investigation. The operation led to the

jailing of more than 100 businessmen and

several politicians, including Luiz Inácio

Lula da Silva, a former president.

The tourism minister is being investi-

gated for putting up female paper candi-

dates in congressional and state elections

to get campaign funds meant for them. Mr

Bolsonaro nominated another son,

Eduardo, to be Brazil’s ambassador to the

United States, adding nepotism to his ad-

ministration’s list of sins.

The president can claim some success-

es, including progress on economic re-

form. He broke with past presidents’ prac-

tice of giving cabinet jobs in exchange for

support in congress. So far, that is his only

contribution to cleaner politics.

A low point came on July 16th, when

Dias Toffoli, a justice on the supreme court,

suspended the investigation of Flávio Bol-

sonaro. Police had identified an “excep-

tional increase” in his net worth tied to

property deals between 2014 and 2017,

when he was a state congressman. Seven

million reais ($2m) passed without expla-

nation through the bank account of his

driver, a friend of the president. 

Mr Toffoli ruled that prosecutors need

permission from a judge to use financial

data collected by coaf, the government fi-

nancial-intelligence unit, and other agen-

cies. The supreme court has been consider-

ing since 2017 whether to issue such a

ruling. It is due to decide in November this

year. Mr Toffoli acted on his own after Flá-

vio’s lawyers joined the suit. The ruling

throws anti-corruption investigations into

a “state of instability and confusion”, says

Silvana Batini, a Lava Jato prosecutor from

Rio de Janeiro. It could also hinder probes

of money-laundering by drug gangs.

The president welcomed the decision to

suspend the case against his son. Other-

wise he has gone quiet on corruption. In

the second half of 2018 he tweeted 68 times

about corruption, according to the Elec-

tronic Government Laboratory at the Uni-

versity of Brasília. The number of tweets

dropped to 20 in the first half of this year. In

July there has so far been none.

Mr Moro, weakened by the leaks, has

said nothing about Mr Toffoli’s decision.

An anti-crime and corruption measure he

proposed is making little progress. The

committee responsible for it in the lower

house of congress has voted down one idea

to punish wrongdoing: writing into law the

requirement that people convicted of cor-

ruption begin their sentences if they lose

their first appeals, which does not always

happen now.

So far, Brazilians have not noticed that

Brazil

Caving on corruption

SÃO PAULO

Jair Bolsonaro is breaking his main campaign promise

The Americas

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