Neither Mundane nor Pointless, and for such a large, diverse, important country like Brazil, I feel like I should know more.
Lulu: a former beloved leader, now being investigated for corruption - a huge deal, in terms of the take down of a previously-loved guy. But now he is being appointed to the current President’s cabinet to avoid/limit prosecution?
ETA: and of course ARGH: it is Lula. :smack: Sorry. Will report for spelling correction in thread title.
The President is hiding him from Justice? How can that happen?
How does the Brazilian population feel about this?
“It is all fucked up. The president is almost in prison. It is so bad! Too much fucked up, in Brazil!”
Coworker and wife are Brazilian, wife also has a European citizenship. He recently finished a project in the country of her citizenship and they decided to try and stay over here rather than go back, “much better future for the children” (who, after one month in Spain, are already correcting their parents’ Spanish, despite both parents having multiple years of SSL). There will be huge chunks of the country he’s not representative of, but I fear he may be representative of those who are both educated and decent - how much of a “brain drain” are they having right now?
There was an article a couple of months ago, I can’t find the cite right now, that talked about being a prosecutor in Brazil. The rather bitter comment is that while the prosecutors are doing a reasonably good job these days, the law, judges, and “connections” almost always end up with the conviction being overturned on appeal. And then the convicted public official holds a big pizza party in celebration. It has gotten to the point where the prosecutors assume that their efforts will end, at best, in a pizza party.
All that said, I have read a couple of articles to the effect that prosecution of public corruption in many countries in S. America has improved significantly in recent years. The courts, laws, and public officials have lagged behind this improvement, but some things are changing for the better. No idea whether this is in fact true, but if it is, it is a hopeful sign.
