Brazil lawmaker: Firms financed vote buy

Monterey Herald ^ | 6/11/05 | Tales Azzoni - AP

[NormsRevenge]

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A vote buying scandal in Brazil's Congress was financed by state and private companies, a Brazilian lawmaker alleged in an interview published Saturday.

Rep. Roberto Jefferson said the money was collected from the private and public companies by a man who works with Delubio Soares, the Workers Party treasurer accused of making the reported payoffs. Last week Jefferson claimed that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's Workers Party made monthly payments of about $12,000 to lawmakers in exchange for votes.

In the exclusive interview with the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, Jefferson did not name the companies, but said the money was distributed to legislators in cash.

Denying speculation that he had several tapes to prove the allegations, Jefferson said he doesn't have any material proof the payments took place.

"I'll tell what I witnessed," said Jefferson, who is expected to testify before Congress on Tuesday. "I'll talk about the facts and the conversations that I had."

Jefferson said Workers Party Leader Jose Genoino and Presidential Chief of Staff Jose Dirceu always knew about the payoffs, but that Silva was not immediately involved.

"Several times I talked (about the payoffs) with Genoino and Soares in Dirceu's office," Jefferson said.

On Wednesday, Genoino and Soares - who was in charge of financing for the 2002 campaign that made Silva Brazil's first elected leftist president - strongly denied the accusations, saying they were "political blackmail."

Jefferson is the leader of the center-right Brazilian Labor Party, which on Wednesday abandoned its formal alliance with the governing coalition in Congress over the allegations.

Silva has never had a majority in Congress and depends on alliances with a patchwork of parties across the political spectrum to get legislation approved.

[Wiz]

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