Brazilian graft scandal becomes 'free-for-all' fight

Thought Brazil's corruption fight was ugly? Well, turns out the combatants might only be getting warmed up.

Barely a year from the day he took over following the impeachment of his predecessor Dilma Rousseff, President Michel Temer is reeling from graft allegations.

He won a solid victory Friday when a court threw out charges that his 2014 victory had relied on dirty money and decided against removing him from office.

But that was just one battle in a wider power struggle shaking Latin America's biggest country. And things are getting shakier by the week.

Rio State university political scientist Mauricio Santoro calls the situation a political "vale tudo."

That's Portuguese for anything goes or free-for-all.

In Brazil "vale tudo" also happens to be the name of a brutal form of competitive fighting, a precursor to Mixed Martial Arts.

Full contact, few rules: welcome to Brazilian politics.

- President vs prosecutor -

The seven judges in Friday's court decision agreed that the 2014 election was awash in undeclared donations and bribes. But a majority sided with court president Gilmar Mendes, who said maintaining stability was more important than punishing Temer.

The problem is that there's little stability to maintain 14 months after Temer helped engineer the impeachment of Rousseff and took her place.

He came into office promising to "pacify" Brazil and to rescue the recession-ravaged economy. Instead, a giant corruption probe named operation "Car Wash" swept over him and many of his allies.

In Temer's case, he's accused of agreeing to pay hush money and taking bribes.

The opening of an investigation by Prosecutor General Rodrigo Janot came close to bringing him down two weeks ago. But the conservative president has since dug in and on Friday he defied Janot in dramatic fashion by ignoring a deadline to supply a written deposition.

Instead his lawyers branded the case "a comedy" and demanded it be closed.

- President vs Supreme Court? -

The standoff between Temer and his accusers took another remarkable twist when Veja, a weekly magazine known for sensational political scoops, claimed that the president was using the national spy agency to snoop on the Supreme Court justice in charge of "Car Wash" cases.

The plan, Veja wrote Friday, quoting an unnamed presidential palace source, was to find compromising material that could be used against Justice Edson Fachin.

The presidency quickly issued a denial.

However, on Saturday the Supreme Court's chief justice Carmen Lucia lashed out at the alleged plot, describing pressure against judges as "the practice of a dictatorship."

Lucia warned of "legal, political and institutional consequences" if the report were proven true.

- Corrupt Congress vs everyone? -

Santoro says these exchanges are "the first shots in an all-out war between Temer, the Supreme Court and the prosecutor general."

And the ultimate goal might be not just Temer's political survival but a weakening of the whole "Car Wash" operation.

"Temer and his allies are arming for an even harder war... to put limits on 'Car Wash,'" the respected Folha daily wrote Saturday.

Temer will look for allies in odd places, starting with the scandal-plagued Congress, where some two thirds of all lawmakers face current or past troubles with the law.

It will be Congress that decides whether Janot can formally charge the president and send him to trial in the Supreme Court. And given that so many legislators -- including one third of the Senate -- are themselves targeted by "Car Wash" investigators they have a strong motive to close ranks.

Moves have already been under way for months to try and pass laws which would constrain judges. That would suit Temer's PMDB party and also its enemy, the leftist Workers' Party.

Workers' Party founder and former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva finds himself in a similar position to Temer -- crying foul about supposed judicial overreach by "Car Wash" judges.

"On this point, the parties... are united," Folha said.

However, with general elections scheduled in late 2018, any alliances are bound to be ephemeral. And while politicians currently almost totally ignore the public, they won't be able to do that forever, especially if ordinary Brazilians take their anger to the streets.

"Vale tudo" fights can end with choking, bloody noses or even broken bones. Brazil's political punch-up looks unlikely to close much more quietly.

Source: AFP