Mensalão - big politicians in jail

This past week the Brazil's superior court ordered the prison of 11 politicians, connected to the mensalão political scandal that came to public eight years ago. They are mainly from the Workers' Party, the same of president Dilma. Among the prisons there are important politics such as José Dirceu, the strong man at Lula's first term as a president.

After the final decision to order the arrests the week before, the Brazilian media was surprised at the beginning of the week with the information that one of the convicteds, Henrique Pizzolato, former director at Banco do Brazil, a state controlled bank, fled to Italy to escape the prison. He is nowon the Interpol wanted list.

Another topic about the arrests is that José Genoino, a congressman that should loose his seat after the conviction is trying a manover to avoid the scandal by asking an early retirement from congress. He also got the privilege of house arrest after stating that he had a hert condition. A medical committee is now analyzing his actual health to see if the privilege should be maitained.

From workers party supporters there was a lot of complaint against the arrests. A manifest signed by lawyers and judges was made public this week against the Supreme Court president, Joaquim Barbosa, questioning the arrest order before 48 hours after the court's final decision. Another argument used by the supporters is that the convicted politicians didn't have the option for a second instance court. This happened because there are privileges that impede politicians to be judged by a regular court in the first place. It is also one of the explanations why the case took so long to be ruled.

Today, O Globo announced that Banco do Brasil is going to seek to recover he 78 million reals that were spent in Mensalão to buy votes from congressmen between 2003 and 2005. 

The case should still be in the news during this week as the congress will vote on the loss of Genoino mandate. 

Concessions

Another important thing that took the attention of the Brazilian press was the concession of two of the most important airports to the private sector. After some protelation the airports of Confins, in Belo Horizonte, capital of the state of Minas Gerais, and Galeao, the biggest airport in Rio de Janeiro were finally passed to the private sector. Now more than half of  Brazilian passengers will use private controlled airports. The biggest winner was Odebrecht a big Brazilan contractor, that was benefited by the concession Edital that established a limit share of 15% of companies that already got the airports of Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Campinas.