NY Times:
As he campaigned for the presidency in 2002, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva boldly pledged to clean up the sordid politics of Brazil. His, he vowed, would be an ethical, honest and moral government the likes of which Brazil had never seen.Corruption robs the country of the benefits of the free market where the guy with the best procut or service at the best price gets the business. Corruption gives the business to those who bribe and extort resulting in poor quality goods and services at higher prices. Socialism tends to do the same thing.
That pledge helped him win the votes of more than 50 million Brazilians and a sweeping mandate. But now, in a gloomy echo of what has happened time and again across Latin America, Mr. da Silva's government is mired in the biggest, most audacious corruption scandal in his country's history.
A congressional inquiry has heard testimony that the governing Workers' Party paid dozens of deputies from other parties a $12,500 monthly stipend for their support. This month, a party functionary was detained at an airport with $100,000 - stashed in his underwear - which he claimed to have earned selling vegetables.
Mr. da Silva's chief aide has been forced to resign, as have the president, secretary general and treasurer of the Workers' Party. While Mr. da Silva has not yet been accused in the scheme, speculation that he could face impeachment is widespread, and the first street demonstrations against him, small but indignant, started this week.
Brazil's scandal is just the latest reminder of the unremitting corruption that has marked Latin American politics since colonial times, when absolute rulers regarded newly conquered realms in the New World as their personal property. The important difference today is that popularly elected governments now hold sway, and corruption has emerged as one of the gravest threats to the hard-won democratic gains of the last 20 years.
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