MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian Senate calls on a “medium” to explain major blackout causes

Adelaide Scritori will contact “spirits” to discover why Brazil was condemned to four hours in the dark

Last week’s huge blackout in Brazil which left 18 of the country’s 26 states in the dark is becoming a major embarrassment for the government with opposition Senators summoning a medium to help explain the causes of the outage.

Over 70 million Brazilians in the country’s main cities (Sao Paulo, Rio do Janeiro, Nelo Horizonte, Brasilia) suffered the consequences and in spite of President Lula da Silva’s promises, the government has been unable so far to inform public opinion. Furthermore officials are publicly bickering about responsibilities.

On this background the Brazilian Senate on request from Senator Arthur Virgílio, leader of the opposition PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy) is calling on a esoteric organization to help solve the mystery.

The esoteric foundation Cacique Cobra Coral (Coral Snake Chief), which supposedly are experts in climate phenomena is well known in Brazil and has been consulted on occasions to help contain rainfall during Rio do Janeiro’s world famous Carnival celebrations. The Brazilian Senate is also summoning experts in energy and weather.

Virgílio said he was not happy with government explanations so far, when a week has gone by since the country’s major outage in history, which also impacted on neighbouring Paraguay.

”Some (government officials) say that it was a lightning, others that it was a thunderstorm, no one knows. And since no one knows let's call the foundation to have the opinion of a psychic, since science and the public administration are not able to answer our doubts“, said Senator Virgilio.

While allies of President Lula da Silva administration criticized the move saying that the opposition ”has lost its mind”, Flexa Ribeiro (PSDB) and head of the Senate's Science and Technology Committee approved the request to invite Cacique Cobra Coral foundation’s main living psychic Adelaide Scritori.

In its official site the foundation points out it was specifically created “to intervene in the misbalances created by man on nature”. Adelaide is the daughter of Angelo Scritori, founder of the foundation. As a medium she invokes the spirit of mentor Cacique Cobra Coral who accordingly in the past has contacted with “the spirit of Galileo Galilei and Abraham Lincoln, among others”.

The Brazilian opposition has adopted a strategy of exposing failure to come up with a credible answer and government tactics to prevent chief of staff Dilma Rousseff - the candidate hand-picked by Lula da Silva to succeed him in the presidency - from giving her testimony on the causes of the blackout in the Senate floor.

But even senators allied to the government seem annoyed over the political dispute surrounding the outage, which only helps, they argue, to further erode the credibility and standing of the Senate which earlier this year was rocked by serious corruption scandals.

“I don't think my time is well spent when doing this kind of stuff. I don't understand what's behind this strategy of doing nothing” said Senator Wellington Salgado from PMDB, President Lula da Silva’s main ally in the upper house.

“This dispute is becoming a joke. The senate contributes to the erosion of its public image when it lends itself to this kind of thing”, complained PMDB senator, Valdir Raupp.

PSDB leader Virgílio points out that Dilma Rousseff headed the team that drafted the current regulations for the energy sector and, because of this, “she has to explain in the Senate how the system works”.

Presidential elections are scheduled in Brazil for next October when the two four year terms of President Lula da Silva come to an end.