Candidates in Brazil Running into Legal Woes Before October Elections

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With less than one month from the first round of general elections in Brazil, corruption accusations and convictions of some important local and national candidates has pegged this election as one of the most confusing in Brazil’s recent history.

On Tuesday (September 4th) Rio de Janeiro’s federal court (TRF2) not only upheld the conviction of former Rio governor and gubernatorial candidate Anthony Garotinho but increased his sentence from two years and six months to four years and six months of imprisonment.

According to the Lei da Ficha Limpa (Clean Slate Law), this latest decision may lead the electoral court to ban Garotinho for running for governor in October. The former official currently appears among the top three candidates for the Guanabara Palace (state executive office), according to polls.

After the court announcement Garotinho stated he will appeal to Brazil’s Supreme Court (STJ) to try to reverse the conviction.

“I will not back down. I’m a candidate. I was unjustly imprisoned, I was beaten and threatened with death and did not back down,” said Garotinho during a press conference on Tuesday evening.

“This decision does not surprise me. It is part of a set of actions designed to render unfeasible the only candidacy against this rotten (political) system, which was denounced by me in Rio de Janeiro,” added the former governor.

Meanwhile in São Paulo, the state’s prosecutor’s office accused former São Paulo City mayor and current vice president candidate for the PT (Workers’Party), Fernando Haddad, of passive corruption, criminal association and money laundering.

Officials say that Haddad requested and received in 2013 an illicit volume of R$2.6 million reais from UTC Contractor to pay off his 2012 campaign debts. Haddad’s lawyers say that the allegations are false, made by a crooked businessman seeking leniency for his own criminal activities through a plea-bargaining deal.

Fernando Haddad is expected to take over the PT party presidential ticket, since former jailed leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been deemed ineligible to run in the October presidential race.