Brazil’s president announces anti- corruption measures
Nation calls for impeachment after allegations swirl
SAO PAULO — President Dilma Rousseff announced a series of antigraft measures Wednesday in the wake of Sunday’s massive nationwide rallies calling for her impeachment and protesting rampant corruption in Latin America’s largest country.
“We have the duty and obligation to fight impunity and corruption,” Rousseff said a nationally broadcast speech.
Rousseff announced the measures the same day a poll showed that her approval rating had plummeted to a new low.
The survey by the Datafolha polling institute showed that the president’s popularity dropped even among Brazil’s poorest, where her support has been always been strong.
Among the measures Rousseff announced were the criminalization of slush funds used to finance election campaigns, the seizure of assets of people found guilty of corruption and the requirement that government officials have no record of crimes.
“This is a decisive step to expand the government’s capacity and power to prevent Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff has seen her poll numbers plunge as a massive corruption probe grips the country. and combat corruption and impunity,” she said.
Sunday’s protest marches were sparked by anger over a sprawling corruption case involving Petrobras, Brazil’s stateowned oil company.
Federal prosecutors say they’ve uncovered Brazil’s biggest graft case yet in a kickback scheme at Petrobras, with at least $ 800 million in bribes paid by construction and engineering firms to politically appointed former executives at the oil company, all in exchange for winning inflated contracts. Investigators say some of the money was funneled back to the campaign coffers of the Workers’ Party and its allies.
Dozens of congress members and some former executive branch officials, including two former chiefs of staff to Rousseff, are under investigation.
The president, who served as chairwoman of Petrobras’ board during several years when the graft occurred, is not implicated.
In the Datafohla poll, 62 percent of respondents said Rousseff’s government was “bad” or “terrible,” compared with 44 percent a month ago.
Thirteen percent of respondents rated her government as “great” or “good.”
Datafolha interviewed 2,842 people March 16- 17. The poll had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
It was the worst popularity rating for a Brazilian president since 1992 when then- President Fernando Collor was impeached for corruption.