President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's campaign manager has stepped down amid allegations that Workers' Party officials tried to buy documents incriminating a leading opposition politician ahead of the Oct. 1 elections.
Ricardo Berzoini's resignation came shortly after Brazil's top electoral court opened an investigation into whether Silva was involved in the supposed plot against Jose Serra of the Social Democratic Party -- a scandal that threatens to dent the president's high popularity.
Silva's campaign said in a statement late on Wednesday that Berzoini, who is also president of the center-left Workers' Party, had resigned as campaign manager and would be replaced by Marco Aurelio Garcia.
The scandal surfaced over the weekend, after federal police arrested an attorney who allegedly was hired by Workers' Party leaders to purchase the documents.
Serra, who lost to Silva in the 2002 presidential elections, is running for the governor's seat in the leading industrial state of Sao Paulo against Workers' Party candidate Aloizio Mercadante.
According to a federal police investigation made public last week, Workers' Party campaign aide Oswaldo Bargas said he met with reporters of local news magazines to sell a dossier containing damaging information for the campaign of Workers' Party adversary Serra for 1.7 million reals (US$781,000).
Bargas said Berzoini knew of the meeting with the reporters but not of the contents of the dossier, which suggested that Serra participated in a public procurement fraud ring during his prior tenure as Brazil's health minister.
Shortly before meeting with Silva on Wednesday evening, Berzoini repeated denials of any role in the scandal.
Police allege that the attorney in their custody, who was identified as Gedimar Pereira Passos, was given the money by Workers' Party officials to buy documents, photos and DVDs supposedly linking Serra to graft when he was health minister between 1998 and 2002.
On Tuesday, Brazil's nonpartisan Supreme Electoral Tribunal opened an investigation into Silva's role in the alleged plot.
The tribunal said that if Silva is found guilty of abuse of authority, he and his running mate, vice president Jose Alencar, would be barred from the race.
The tribunal's press office said that the investigation will not be finished before the Oct. 1 election day, however, so it was unlikely that Silva would be kicked out of the race.
But if the president wins re-election and the tribunal rules against him, federal prosecutors could launch legal proceedings that could result in Silva losing his mandate.
If that were to happen, the runner-up would then become Brazil's next president, the tribunal's press office said.
Police said Passos named Silva security aide Freud Godoy as an intermediary. Godoy, who resigned on Monday, has denied any wrongdoing.
The electoral tribunal's investigation stems from a formal request filed earlier this week by the Social Democratic Party and the right-of-center Liberal Front Party that accused Silva of undue interference in the campaign.
Silva has a commanding lead in election polls despite earlier corruption scandals tied to the Workers' Party, including allegations of influence-peddling.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion