The paroxysm engulfing recent Brazilian politics has not ended with the impeachment of the president, but has now extended to claim another influential politician.
The country’s lower house voted on Monday to expel its former speaker, Eduardo Cunha, for perjury, corruption and obstruction of justice. The decision was overwhelming – 450 votes in favour against 10 with nine abstentions.
Not only has he lost his seat, but he has also been barred from politics for eight years while his parliamentary immunity has been revoked.
Cunha was the very person who orchestrated the successful impeachment process against former president Dilma Rousseff and now he, too, has been given the boot with greater opprobrium than Rousseff as she at least still has her political rights.
The powerful politician left with a warning. “It’s the price I’m paying for the country to be free of the Workers party. They are charging me the price for leading the impeachment process,” he told lawmakers. “Tomorrow, it will be you.”
Cunha is a member of the Democratic Movement party and also a convert to the evangelical Assembly of God.
He has claimed that the charges are political rather than legal and that he is a victim of a political conspiracy, with the media partly to blame.
Cunha’s unpopularity with the public deepened with reports that he received illegal bribes and hid some $1.3 million in Swiss bank accounts. The money is alleged to be related to the kickback scandals at Brazil’s oil company Petrobras.
Credit card statements had previously been leaked by prosecutors; they showed lavish spending at home and abroad far in excess of his declared annual income of $120,000.
A Datafolha survey earlier this year found 77% of voters thought Cunha should be stripped of his mandate, compared with 61%-67% for Rousseff, who was blamed for the recession, political turmoil and failing to stop corruption.
Cunha has promised to write a book about his involvement in the impeachment of the president, based on his “good memory”. Part of Cunha’s reputation involves knowledge of the secrets of some of his fellow politicians. If published, these could have further consequences still for politics in Brazil.
