“Odebrecht is going to make a plea bargain (…) there has to be a impeachment (…) we need to bring in Michel and make a big national agreement with the Supreme Court, with everything.”
The Odebrecht in question was Marcelo Odebrecht, the powerful owner of the family construction company that corrupted almost everyone with power in Brazil.
O impeachment was that of Dilma Rousseff, one of the rare authorities without a glass ceiling during the Car Washand Michel, Temer, whose rise to the head of the State would help to stop the operation thanks to the politician’s good transit in the legislative and judicial powers.
The phrase, said during a phone call with a friend captured by the Federal Police and shared in the press sometime in 2016, belongs to Romero Jucá, then one of the most prominent MDB chiefs, a symbol of Brazilian conservatism. And it is the summary of the state of mind of the establishment of Brasília in those times because of the offensive jet wash about the political class.
Ten years later, the state of mind of the establishment of Brasília, because of the police offensive surrounding the bankruptcy of Banco Master on the political class, returned to the same level.
The cases have, however, differences. First of all, instead of the old rich billionaire Marcelo Odebrecht, this time the center of the scandal is a new rich man, the banker Daniel Vorcaro.
At the time, the judiciary began in the role of vigilante acclaimed by the people, with Sergio Moro elevated to an incorruptible hero. Now, Dias Toffoli and Alexandre de Moraes, judges of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) with family ties to Vorcaro’s tentacles, are in the eye of the storm.
And the mediainstead of being fascinated by Moro and prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol for putting powerful hitherto accustomed to impunity in jail for the first time, this time they are on guard: after all, years later the Operation Vaza-Jato exposed in the press the serial illegalities of Car Wash motivated by the political agenda of Moro, later minister and now senator, and Dallagnol, now deputy.
But there are also similarities: although Odebrecht and Vorcaro have corrupted politicians from all areas, mainly on the right and center-right, at the time of the revelations, the one in power in 2016 was Dilma’s PT, and the one in power in 2026 is Lula da Silva’s PT. Therefore, the leaks of information and plea bargains then, as now, inevitably, but perhaps unfairly, contaminate the party in an election year.
The biggest similarity, however, is the proverbial drive of Brasília, that is, of the political caste that has dominated Brazil for years, for decades, for centuries, for luxury.
From former Bolsonaro ministers to STF judges, people who already live within the 1% of the richest and most privileged in the country (and in the world), everyone is tempted by the next deal in China proposed by multimillionaire friends of power, by an exclusive box in Sapucaí or Interlagos, by a jet trip, by a Cuban cigar in the mouth or by a whisky 12 year old down his throat. Even knowing the risks to their respective careers and reputations.
Brasília’s greedy brain works like that of the most unfortunate heroin addict.
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