03-03-2016: Latin American Weekly Report

Eduardo Cunha, the speaker of Brazil’s federal lower chamber of congress, is to become the first defendant in a supreme court trial of those accused in ‘Operation Car Wash’, the investigation into corruption at the state- controlled oil company Petrobras. On the evening of 2 March, six of the court’s 11 magistrates voted in favour of investigating Cunha for corruption and money-laundering. Two more cases against Cunha will also be voted on in the coming days: whether to strip him of the speakership and whether to investigate his Swiss bank accounts. Added to this, Cunha also faces an investigation in the congressional ethics committee, which could see him lose his parliamentary mandate. Despite the pile-up of cases against him, Cunha shows no signs of going anywhere, a stance that is likely to paralyse Brazil’s dysfunctional congress yet further.