1) Many Brazilian politicians face criminal charges related to corruption, such as violating campaign finance laws and stealing public funds. However, they have faced little consequences due to slow justice system and ability to resign to avoid impeachment. 2) A new law was approved that will disqualify politicians convicted of serious crimes or who resigned to avoid impeachment from holding office for 8 years. The law applies retroactively and could force some notorious corrupt politicians out of office. 3) While some politicians may try to avoid the law, it represents a significant change for cleaning up corruption in Brazilian politics according to observers, as voters have shown they are less forgiving of corrupt candidates.

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Brazil's congress
Cleaning up
A campaign against corruption
Jul 8th 2010 | SÃo Paulo
ORGANISED crime takes several forms in Brazil. One is politics—a lucrative trade. Of the 513
members of the lower house of Congress, 147 face criminal charges in the supreme court or are
under investigation, and the same goes for 21 of the 81 senators, according to Congresso em Foco, a
website that acts as a watchdog. Some—nobody knows quite how many—have already been
convicted in lower courts. Most of the crimes involve either violating campaign-finance laws or
stealing public money.
Hitherto the politicians had little to worry about. Although the law was changed to limit
parliamentary immunity for corruption, Brazilian justice is patient. Politicians have the right to be
tried by the supreme court, but many cases lapse before they are heard. When the supreme court
recently convicted two politicians for corruption, it was the first successful prosecution since
democracy was restored in 1985. Since legislators who are impeached lose their right to run for
office, many of those in serious trouble simply resign pre-emptively. They then stand in the next
election and get straight back to business.
But a new law approved last month will disqualify from political office for eight years all those
convicted of a serious crime, as well as those whose resignations were motivated by a desire to avoid
impeachment, as determined by the electoral tribunals. To the chagrin of some of those shamed into
voting for the measure, the electoral court ruled that the law will apply not just to those convicted in

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future, but also to those who already have a criminal record and those who resigned under a cloud
during the current congress.
Quite how wide a net the new law will cast is not clear. Two politicians convicted of crimes gained
interim injunctions from supreme-court justices which, if confirmed, would allow them to register
candidacies. And politicians facing well-documented corruption charges who have yet to be
convicted may be able to crawl back to office at the next election in October.
Nevertheless, some notorious figures may be forced out. They include Paulo Maluf, a former mayor
of São Paulo who has been convicted of “maladministration” (a catch-all offence used for officials
suspected of corruption), and is wanted by a New York prosecutor for money laundering. The same
goes for Joaquim Roriz, who resigned as a senator for Brasília in 2007 after being accused of
stealing 223m reais ($120m) from a state bank. But Jader Barbalho, who resigned from the Senate
in 2001 over corruption claims and faces six separate charges in the supreme court, has not been
convicted. Elected as a deputy in 2002, he is likely to stand for office in Para, an Amazonian state,
this year.
The law, dubbed ficha limpa (“clean record”), amounts to “a revolution”, says Sylvio Costa of
Congresso em Foco. It is the result of a petition to Congress signed by some 1.5m citizens, and was
passed in record time. It follows the failure of a series of political-reform bills in Congress.
Even if some of the questioned politicians persuade state electoral courts to register their
candidacies, the voters may be less forgiving. David Fleischer, a political scientist at the University
of Brasília, points out that of 69 deputies accused of skimming money from ambulance contracts in
2006, only five kept their seats in that year's election. This time some of them might not even get on
the ballot.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition