Boz tipped me to this article in Brazil's leading newsweekly, Veja, alleging that Lula's campaign received money from Cuba in the run-up to the 2002 election.
I read the article and it really amounts to two men with ties to Antônio Paolocci, Brazil's Finance Minister and Lula's campaign manager in 2002, making the accusations. There is no hard evidence presented in the article: no flight log of the plane allegedly used to transport the money, no photos, no e-mails or tapes of conversations about this, nothing but allegations.
I'm not saying that this is completely impssible, but Cuba has hardly had the means recently to send millions to other countries in Latin America. Indeed, if one could have sent money from somewhere else in Latin America, Venezuela would have been the obvious choice.
I do not know if this is Veja's style of reporting, but it reeks of editorializing. The headline to the story simply says "Lula's Campaign Received Money From Cuba." It doesn't say there are allegations, nor does it make any other qualifying statement. Moreover, when one of the figures making the charges has second thoughts, the author of the article wrote, "The attempt by Vladimir Poleto to back down from his statements is an expression of how heavy the truth is." It could also be an expression of how worried he is that he may be taken to task for fabricating an accusation. The point is, that a man wanting to take back what he said is not proof of anything.
Nevertheless, if this is true, it will literally mean the end of the Workers' Party as Brazilian law forbids foreign campaign contributions and prescribes among the penalties, the dissolution of the party receiving the money. Larry Rohter notes this comment from a credible source:
This is a serious occurrence in every respect," Senator Tasso Jereisatti, a leader of the center-left Brazilian Social Democratic Party, said in an interview with the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, noting that Brazilian law forbids campaign donations from foreign sources. "If it is proven, the president is going to have no alternative. He will not have the conditions to be able to govern; he'll have to give up his job."
I agree with Jereisatti. Jereisatti, I might add is, in my opinion, one of the most respectable figures in Brazilian politics. When he was governor of the State of Ceará, he shattered the stereotype of corrupt, greedy nordestino politicians and helped make Ceará the most developed state in the northeast.
Unlike Veja, however, Jeresatti qualifies his statement with the word if. Meanwhile, the Workers' Party has filed a suit alleging slander against Veja. Time will certainly tell if this story has any traction, but absent anything other than the word of two men, one of whom wants to take back his claims, this won't go anywhere.
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