Brazil party system rotten, prosecutor says

In a press conference on the 28th phase of Operation Car Wash, Federal Prosecutor Carlos Fernando Santos Lima, in charge of the task force spearheading the crackdown in the southern city of Curitiba, said that, at this point in the investigations, on may come to the conclusion that “the Brazilian party system is rotten.”

In Lima's opinion, the evidence that Gim Argello, arrested Tuesday (Apr. 12), received bribes in exchange for political work at congressional inquiry committees on Petrobras shows that corruption is intrinsic to the exercise of power.

“The exercise of power, in whatever party it may be, is what has led to corruption, and this corruption aims to feed the coffers of political campaigns. These amounts were mostly earmarked for parties in Gim Argello's base, including opposition parties,” said the prosecutor. “The conclusion we come to and the conclusion we all should come to is that the country's party system has been made rotten by the use of economic power.”

After the plea bargain statements given by Ricardo Pessoa, owner of UTC Engenharia construction company, and the messages of the seized cellphone of CEO Léo Pinheiro of another construction firm, OAS, investigators in Operation Car Wash have produced evidence that Argello received $1.412 million to protect executives from being called by both the Senate's committee of investigation and the joint committee on wrongdoings at Petrobras, in 2014.

The former PTB senator allegedly held talks with executives on the payment of bribes in the form of donations for the political campaigns of DEM, PR, PMN and PRTB parties, which form part of an electoral coalition alongside the PTB. Also paid was $98.85 thousand to a parish church visited by Argello in Taguatinga, which investigators suspect may have been used for money laundering.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira