Former Brazilian Finance Minister Antonio Palocci has struck a plea deal with federal investigators, according to news advance from the Rio based O'Globo on Thursday, raising the stakes in a corruption scandal engulfing high-ranking politicians and prominent businessmen.
Brazil's ex-president Lula, who is imprisoned for corruption, on Tuesday gave his Workers' Party (PT) the green light to find a new candidate for the October presidential election in which he remains the frontrunner. “I want you to feel totally free to take whatever decision you need because 2018 is an important year for the PT, for the left and for democracy,” wrote Lula da Silva in a letter to the party leadership.
At least 15 of the 20 candidates who might run for president of Brazil in the October elections are targeted in more than 160 cases in courts throughout the country. Cases range from investigations in the Lava Jato operation to traffic offenses, and while in some cases would-be candidates are still only under investigation, in others they are either accused, or defendants, or have been sentenced – one of them was even arrested: former president Lula da Silva (PT), who is currently leading the poles.
Half of the nations belonging to Unasur, a South American bloc set up a decade ago to counter U.S. sway in the region, have decided to suspend their membership, a Brazilian official announced on Friday.
Members of the Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) celebrated on Thursday their newest member, potential presidential candidate and former Supreme Court Justice Joaquim Barbosa, whose debut in a national poll stoked hopes for his potential.
The most likely political heir to jailed former President Lula da Silva insists the leftist leader is still the Workers Party’s candidate for the October elections, but he is preparing to step into the role. Fernando Haddad told the Brazilian media that he was talking with other left-wing parties about forging a united leftist front for the elections if Lula is barred from running by a corruption conviction.
A Brazilian court on Wednesday turned down ex-president Lula da Silva's latest appeal against his 12-year sentence for corruption, seemingly putting his bid for a political comeback even farther out of reach. The court in Porto Alegre tweeted that it had unanimously turned down the appeal, which was of a technical nature and, even if successful, would not have changed Lula's guilty verdict.
A group of homelessness activists briefly occupied on Monday the seaside apartment at the heart of the corruption case that saw ex-president Lula da Silva imprisoned earlier this month. About 30 members of the Homeless Workers' Movement and other leftist activists got into the triplex apartment in Guaruja, near Sao Paulo, hanging placards from the balcony in support of Lula.
Brazilian voters are abandoning jailed former President Lula da Silva as his chances of running in October fade, but they are not transferring their support en masse to other leftist candidates, a Datafolha poll showed on Sunday. Without Lula in the running, support for far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro has slipped and is now virtually tied with environmentalist Marina Silva in a presidential race thrown wide open, the survey said.
The Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal acts primarily as the Constitutional Court of the country, and its rulings cannot be appealed. The court is made up of eleven members, Justices, addressed to as Ministers, and they are appointed by the president and must be approved by the Senate.