Tuesday, November 30, 2010

aerial embarrassment

Passengers of American Airlines flight 256, departing from Rio de Janeiro’s Antonio Carlos Jobim (GIG) Terminal 1, to New York’s John F. Kennedy (JFK), were lucky to make their 11:30PM flight on November 20. The same was probably true for passengers of British Airways 248, Aerolineas Argentinas 1257 and American Airlines 904.


For a complete version of this article, please visit The Rio Times.



Monday, November 22, 2010

the permissible evil

Development advocates at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank claim corruption is a pervasive evil in most emerging economies – both a cause and consequence of poverty – in urgent need of eradication. Some may blame its existence on poverty, immorality, or even culture. Here are some news: regardless of its origins, corruption isn’t unique to the “developing” world and although nobody is keen to admit, the practice cannot and, arguably, should not be annihilated.


Transparency International (TI), the “global civil society organization leading the fight against corruption” which recently launched the 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index, claims to challenge “the inevitability of corruption, and offer hope to its victims.” The ideal is noble and evokes other grand Plans, like the call to end world poverty, which, after over US$2.3 trillion devoted to the cause in recent decades, remains far from being achieved.


Critics say corruption is one of the main obstacles to much needed progress around the world. Can this assertion be universalized? Take the case of Brazil. Outgoing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party (PT) – built on a reputation of clean government – has been involved in repeated corruption scandals since da Silva took office in 2003. Amongst the most notorious is the 2005 Mensalão (“big monthly payment”), involving allegations that prominent PT members, including former Chief of Staff José Dirceu, orchestrated a scheme to pay congressmen monthly allowances of around US$17.5 thousand to secure votes for legislation.


While half of congressional deputies were kicked out as a result of Supreme Court indictments and investigations in 2007, over a dozen individuals involved in the affair remain in the legislature. Although the party fiercely denies any link to the president in this and other corruption scandals, it is hard for any well-educated and well-informed individual to believe da Silva ignored what was going on under his nose.


It is no secret to Brazilians or international observers that corruption is endemic in the country. The world’s eighth largest economy, Brazil received a score of 3.7 on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (highly clean) in this year’s Corruption Perceptions Index, placing it at 69 out of 178 countries ranked from least to most corrupt. Unsurprisingly, nearly three quarters of countries studied scored below 5.


Critics claim corruption produces devastating impacts on men, women and children. And yet, Brazil’s internationally admired pro-poor policies for which da Silva is frequently praised (think Bolsa Família, which provides financial aid to families on condition that children attend school and are vaccinated), helped lift around 10% of the population out of poverty and increase primary school enrollment to above 95%. The PT’s economic policies ensured Brazil was one of the last countries to enter and first ones to leave the global recession, and are pushing the country towards becoming the world’s fifth largest economy by 2020. Who can soundly argue Brazil is fairing badly?


Transparency International purports to want to raise awareness about the practice and diminish apathy and tolerance of corruption. The organization’s bottom line: “corruption hurts everyone”. While rhetorically powerful, the statement is factually inaccurate. It is a pervasively and openly corrupt administration that propelled nearly 20 million Brazilians into the market economy. Politicians definitely did not suffer in the process, and the people seem to be very content with increased, albeit limited, benefits.


On October 31, 55.7 million voters elected Dilma Rousseff, da Silva’s handpicked successor, to become the country’s first female leader. Elections came in the midst of allegations that Rousseff’s “right hand woman”, former Chief of Staff Erenice Guerra, was implicated in a corruption scheme involving contracts to favor her son’s consulting firm and that prominent PT members had broken banking secrecy laws of members of the opposition Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB). Even so, da Silva’s “chosen one” easily won and he is set to leave the presidency with above 80% approval ratings.


Anyone familiar with Brazil knows of the popular jeitinho brasileiro (“Brazilian way”), roughly described as the “art of working things out” and often involving monetary transactions. This is true for the young boy guarding your car on the streets of Rio de Janeiro to the president of the Workers’ Party sitting in Brasília.


The country slipped from 124th to 127th place in this year’s World Bank “Doing Business” report, which assesses factors like the easiness of opening, running and closing firms around the world. If you don’t have an ally in the government, all you have to do to bypass painfully slow bureaucracies, is hire a despachante, a middleman who gets official documents pushed through “suspiciously quickly”.


You can object to the abhorrent convention, but if you do not know how to swindle, it is unlikely you will get anything done in Latin America’s giant. Reality is, you cannot eliminate an integral part of a well-functioning machine, especially one that is being successful at moving a country of continental proportions forward.


Claiming to fight for eradicating corruption might fulfill moral aspirations for a more equal and just world. But when it comes to realities on the ground, priorities quickly shift. Maybe the problem isn’t with corruption as a practice in itself, but with politicians who live out it while denying their people’s most basic needs. So the real lesson may be that, if you do it, just make sure you do it well, and the world may very well allow you to slide by.


Please note this article was written as an exercise on arguing for a view WHICH I DO NOT HOLD. In other words, defending the abhorrent practice of corruption.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

cariocas: rise up

"The government wants to make the favelas safer for tourists because the view up here is amazing. […] Everyone here is focused on the World Cup and the Olympics," Patricia Correia Capistrano, a 28-year-old resident of Rocinha told the BBC News. Is that the logic behind all the fuss about the Police Pacifying Units (UPPs)?


For a complete version of this article, please visit The Rio Times.


will she surprise us?

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – One week after Brazil’s presidential elections, history is somewhat still waiting to be made. On October 31st, 55.7 million Brazilians didn’t just elect their first female president, a laudable and historic feat. They voted for condoning the corruption entrenched in the Workers’ Party (PT) government.

For a complete version of this article, please visit The Rio Times.

brazil's big winner: corruption

Brazil’s history has somewhat been made. The 55.7 million Brazilians who voted for Dilma Rousseff on October 31, didn’t just elect their first female president. They also chose to overlook the corruption entrenched in the eight-year-long rule of the Workers’ Party (PT) government.


No political party can claim a monopoly over corruption, endemic in the country ranked 69 out of 180 nations surveyed in Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perception Index. However, the Workers’ Party – once known for clean government – has been linked to all the nation’s major political scandals in recent years, showing it has become too cozy with power.


Amongst the most infamous is the 2005 Mensalão (“big monthly payment”), involving allegations that prominent PT members, including José Dirceu, Brazil’s former Chief of Staff, orchestrated a scheme to pay congressmen monthly allowances of around 30 thousand reais (roughly US$17.5 thousand) to guarantee votes for legislation.


Brazil’s Supreme Court indicted 40 people on charges of corruption, racketeering and money laundering in 2007. Nearly half of congressional representatives were kicked out as a result, but over a dozen people involved in the affair remained in the legislature and Dirceu, referred to by Brazil’s attorney-general as the “architect of a criminal organization”, played a central role in Rousseff’s campaign team.


In early 2006 former PT Finance Minister Antonio Palocci stepped down amidst allegations of corruption stemming from his management of da Silva’s 2002 presidential campaign and of breaking banking secrecy laws. Rumors now abound Palocci is likely to become Rousseff’s Chief of Staff.


In mid-September 2010, Erenice Guerra, who Rousseff has described as her “right hand woman”, and who took over as Chief of Staff when Rousseff stepped down to run for president, resigned amidst allegations of participation in a corruption scheme involving contracts favoring her son’s consulting firm. The “Erenice Scandal”, as the affair is now popularly known, came in the midst of accusations that members of Rousseff’s campaign illegally accessed the tax records of Veronica Serra, the opposition candidate’s daughter and of high-ranking members of his Party of Brazilian Social Democracy (PSDB). Both cases are currently under investigation by Brazil’s Federal Police.


Unlike her predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Rousseff did not rise through the ranks of the Worker’s Party. She was handpicked and imposed on the party by da Silva as soon as it became clear that his most likely successors were all implicated in corruption scandals. He then worked tirelessly to propel her from obscurity.


Constitutionally barred from running for a third presidential term, da Silva joked in March of this year he would run under a different name: “Dilma Rousseff”. For the past two years, the outgoing president has spared no efforts to transfer his political capital and approval rating – hovering at 80% – to his protégée, doing most of the talking on the campaign trail (often in violation of electoral law) and crediting Rousseff with some of the government’s accomplishments. National and international media have referred to her as “Lula in lipstick”.


Unsurprisingly, for PT supporters, Rousseff represents the continuation of da Silva’s social and economic policies, which helped elevate Brazil to the rank of eighth largest economy in the world and lift around 10% of the population out of poverty. This success story echoed principally among the rural and urban poor and migrants to the big cities – a majority of the electorate – for whom a vote for Rousseff was a vote for Brazil’s “best president ever”.


When the recent corruption scandals broke out José Serra, the PSDB opposition candidate, vigorously repeated that Rousseff was either incompetent for, as she claimed, “not knowing about them” or a criminal if she did know. Rousseff’s ratings wavered slightly in the polls which, analysts say, pushed her once certain first round win into the runoff on October 31.


An October 11 survey by Brazilian pollster Datafolha suggested that 75% of voters who initially intended to vote for Rousseff and then cast their ballot for another candidate on the first round of elections, on October 3, did so because of the corruption allegations involving the PT. But these were mainly well-educated, well-informed people, who comprise a minor percentage of Brazil’s electorate. According to analysts, for the majority of Brazilians, who often benefited directly from da Silva’s anti-poverty policies, allegations of corruption were not a priority. In addition, many people, rich and poor alike, still do not understand the complexities behind the scandals.


Rousseff’s bid was never really endangered and Serra never really stood a chance. Rousseff easily brushed off the affairs and pursued her path to victory with da Silva unwaveringly standing by her side. After all, winning against a president with above 80% approval ratings is difficult, or in this case, impossible.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

brazil's elections victors: a woman and corruption

The polls have closed, results were revealed and history has somewhat been made. Brazilians cast their ballots for the country’s future leader, on October 31. The winner: Dilma Rousseff, the candidate hand-picked by outgoing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the left-leaning Workers’ Party (PT). The losers: José Serra of the Party of Social Democracy (PSDB) and the 43.7 million voters who hoped for change.


Yesterday, 55.7 million Brazilians didn’t just elect their first female president, a laudable and historic feat; they voted for condoning the corruption entrenched in the PT government. It may be easy to understand how Rousseff won – she now has da Silva to thank for his role as her campaigner-in-chief – but it remains difficult to grasp why Brazil did not vote against the eight-year-long fraudulent rule of the Workers’ Party.


Rousseff, a former minister and chief of staff, rode a wave of prosperity under da Silva’s coattails. The president spared no efforts to transfer his political capital and approval rating hovering at 80% to his protégée, doing most of the talking in the campaign trail (often in violation of electoral law) and crediting Rousseff for some of his government’s accomplishments.


Unsurprisingly, for PT supporters, Rousseff represents the continuation of da Silva’s social and economic policies, which elevated Brazil to the rank of eighth largest economy and helped lift around 10% of the population out of poverty. This reasoning echoed principally among the rural and urban poor and migrants to the big cities – a majority of the electorate – for whom a vote for Rousseff was a vote for Brazil’s “best president ever”.


But a ballot for da Silva’s “chosen one” was a ballot for a party that has made corruption a characteristic of its government.

Ranked 69 out of 180 countries surveyed in Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perception Index, corruption is endemic in Brazil. Even though no political party can claim a monopoly over the practice, the ruling Workers’ Party and its allies have been connected to all major corruption scandals in recent years.


Amongst the most notorious is the 2005 Mensalão (“monthly stipend”), involving allegations that the Workers’ Party paid a number of congressmen monthly allowances of around US$ 17.5 thousand to secure votes for legislation. At the time, Rousseff – then Minister of Energy and Mines – was appointed Chief of Staff when her predecessor, José Dirceu, was forced to resign for his orchestration of the Congress vote-buying scheme.


In early 2006 former PT Finance Minister Antonio Palocci stepped down amidst allegations of corruption from his management of da Silva’s 2002 presidential campaign and of breaking banking secrecy laws. Despite the scandals hitting very close to da Silva, he easily won re-election in October of 2006, and his party’s corruption remained unpunished.


Brazil’s Supreme Court indicted 40 people in 2007, including the president’s former right-hand man, on charges of corruption, racketeering and money-laundering arisen from the Mensalão. Brazil’s attorney-general said Dirceu, the “scheme’s architect”, ran a “sophisticated criminal organization”. Although nearly half of Congress was turned out as a result, a dozen involved individuals remained in the legislature. Dirceu now plays a central role in Rousseff’s team and rumors abound that Palocci will become her chief of staff.


In 2008, the Chief of Staff’s office, then led by Rousseff, was accused of producing dossiers on the personal spending of former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and of pressuring the National Civil Aviation Agency’s sale of Varig airline to a favored buyer. In early September 2010, members of Rousseff’s PT were implicated in the illegal access of the tax records of Serra’s daughter and of PSDB members, including the party’s vice-president.


Erenice Guerra, da Silva’s Chief of Staff who took over when Rousseff stepped down to campaign for president, resigned in mid-September amidst allegations of taking bribes to procure government contracts for businesses. The event tarnished Rousseff’s image who, albeit not mentioned in the accusations, had a long-standing personal relationship with Guerra and frequently referred to her as “my right hand woman”. Rousseff’s ratings wavered slightly in the polls which, analysts say, pushed her once certain first round win on October 3 to the runoff on October 31.


Serra vigorously pursued these issues, repeating Rousseff was either incompetent for, as she claimed, “not knowing about them” or had committed a crime if she did know. His pleas fell largely on deaf ears.


An October 11 survey by Brazilian pollster Datafolha suggested that 75% of voters who initially intended to vote for Rousseff and then cast their ballot for another candidate did so because of the corruption allegations involving her party. But these were mainly well-educated, well-informed people, who comprise a minor percentage of Brazil’s electorate. According to analysts, the majority of Brazilians simply did not understand what went on behind the scandals.


This allowed Rousseff to brush off the affairs and pursue her path to victory on the incumbent president’s popularity and economic and anti-poverty policies.


Maybe Rousseff will surprise us and make a clear commitment to clean the government. She has to. Fears of Brazil’s legacy of corruption are amplified by the recent discovery of deep-sea oil reserves, which have a habit of providing a lucrative means of rewarding party and president loyalty.


It will take a very determined and skilled president to push the much-needed political reforms through a system run on whims of special interests. It is too early to know whether Rousseff will have the strength and desire required to do so or whether her powers will be constrained from within. Unlike her predecessor, Rousseff did not rise through the PT. Her unexpected candidacy was imposed by da Silva, once his likely successors were all directly implicated in corruption scandals.


The new president will have a tough time. As José Dirceu told a group of PT members in September, the Workers’ Party will be even more powerful under Rousseff, whereas da Silva is “twice as big as the party”.