Transcript 0:00 Rio de Janeiro was at the center of the world in 2014 and 2016 when Brazil hosted the Football World Cup and the Olympics. 0:10 The games of the 31st Olympiad officially commence with an opening ceremony at storied Maracanã Stadium, promising music, dancing, and a spirit for revelry that endures in the face of everything else as a Brazilian signature. 0:27 It seemed like a turning point for the city with Brazil's soft power as high as ever. 0:34 [gentle music] About 96% of foreign tourists who came to these events said they would gladly return, and it seemed Brazilian tourism might finally become the economic powerhouse it seems destined to be. 0:50 Four years later, everything seems to have gone downhill. Every single living former governor of Rio has been jailed at some point, and the incumbent governor could face a similar destiny. 1:04 This week, we discuss Rio's endemic corruption problem. My name is Gustavo Ribeiro. I'm the editor-in-chief of The Brazilian Report. This is Explaining Brazil. 1:17 [upbeat music] Benjamin Foggo is a columnist at The Brazilian Report and is replacing Ewan Marshall, who's on vacation, as our acting editor. Thanks for joining us. Hi, Gustavo. Thanks for having me. 1:34 So Ben, tell me about Wilson Witzel. Well, Wilson Witzel is kind of a weird guy in the sense that nobody had ever heard of him until about 2018. He was a federal judge who was kind of low-key. 1:47 No one, uh, remembers anything particular about his time at the judiciary. He served in the Brazilian Marine Corps with no distinction, and as a public defender in Rio, also very little distinction. And then, uh, 2018. 2:02 What happened in 2018? Well, so 2018, of course, was the year of Brazil's general elections, and this was also a period where there was a deep rejection of the, the establishment. 2:12 Uh, there was a lot of a- anger at the political class. People were angry about corruption. People were angry about rising crime. 2:18 People saw the entire system as somehow implicated and, uh, in, in sort of massive corruption scandals. So Witzel, uh, among many others, decided to leave his unremarkable career at the judiciary and, uh, run for office. 2:34 [upbeat music] [singing] And he joined, uh, the Social Christian Party, ch- which is just another one of those very small parties in Brazil, uh, with a sort of semi-misleading name that occupies a large space in politics. 2:57 In this case, this party is dominate, is dominated by an evangelical preacher. And how did that go? Witzel at first seemed destined to fail as he kind of sort of had in every other endeavor he had in life. 3:09 I mean, only a couple, a couple, a week or so before the election, he was polling about 4%. And then he played his major card in the last gubernatorial debate. What did Witzel do? 3:20 [upbeat music] He got his surfboard up and, uh, tried to ride the Bolsonaro wave. 3:28 [upbeat music] [speaking Portuguese] So if we to go back a little bit, um, Bolsonaro, when he was running in 2018, had just negotiated a deal that year to join a party. 3:45 He had n- no party loyalty to the party he joined, and in fact, has left the said party. So it wasn't so much of a party that Bolsonaro was offering but a wave, if you were, uh, part of the sort of Bolsomania. 3:57 You were anti-crime. You were tough. You were ready to shoot people. You were gonna end the privileges of powerful. You were against corruption. 4:04 You were violently anti-left, and you joined that wave, uh, as a good chance through just name recognition alone and sort of anti-establishment, uh, authoritarian mood that you would get votes. Right, and it worked? 4:19 It worked. He quadrupled his polling numbers in a week. He was third place by the eve of the election, and he m- finished first, um, making it to the runoff. 4:31 And this was a complete shock because normally in Rio politics, you have to have a set of alliances with, uh, sort of major political actors in the city, whether it be the churches, whether it be the old-school political establishment parties, uh, or key political players, and he was in the runoff against the former mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, uh, 4:54 who is just about as establishment as you can get in Rio. [speaking Portuguese] So once in office, how did Witzel perform? 5:10 I mean, from the day he took office, he's been kind of, uh, I think the only best way to describe him is sort of a bizarre spectacle. 5:16 Uh, he's kind of been an absurd figure in politics, and Rio de Janeiro, which is generally absurd politics, he even stands out by their standards. What do you mean by [chuckles] strange? 5:27 Well, you know, there's no ceremonial gubernatorial sash in Brazil. Only the president has that, and he only really brings it out on special occasions. 5:35 But Witzel, for some reason, uh, his sort of delusions of grandeur perhaps, uh, wanted all that sort of pomp and circumstance for himself and had a sash made es- especially just for his inauguration. 5:49 And he didn't just wear it on his inauguration. He wore it at every opportunity, official ceremonies. 5:55 I mean, any chance he could get, he whipped that thing out, uh, despite being widely mocked for it, but he was really serious into his sash. And that kind of set a precedent. 6:04 He's always had this sort of delusional sense of, uh, wanting to be the center of attention in media spectacles with all this sort of sense of messianic fervor throughout his, uh, go- his term in office. 6:16 And in what other way was Witzel peculiar? 6:20 Well, if we were to identify any sort of real political issue that he took up or a s- one sort of ideological issue, because he's kind of an unknown quantity, he's a bit all over the place, it's that he was 100% in favor of police brutality, like Bolsonaro. 6:39 Uh, he, in his own words, basically said he was launching a crusade against organized crime. 6:45 He always refers it to sort of religious language, and he said officers, uh, who were pursuing suspects were to aim for their little heads. No momento que você fala solta, ele vai soltar, é o dedo no gatilho. 7:00 Uh, Witzel also took every opportunity to get photo ops during very controversial and brutal police actions, including police helicopter strikes in the city fave- the city's favelas, which really increased, uh, during his tenure. 7:12 So he was even pictured holding a sniper rifle in a helicopter, which is a completely absurd thing for a civilian politician to do. And, uh, under his watch, people died. 7:22 A lot of people died, especially in these helicopter operations where pe- where police opened up with machine guns on cramped favelas, hitting children. Um, I mean, there's been a definite in- uptake in police killings. 7:36 Caralho, tacaram bomba, mané. Estão tacando bomba, viado. For instance, the f- social effects on favelas, which are already traumatized by decades of police violence, uh, have even been worse under his, his tenure. 7:50 For instance, there was a, the famous moment where a preschooler living in a favela made a drawing in their homework assignment saying he didn't like helicopters because when they fly, people die. Wow. 8:00 Uh, I mean, there was another disgusting photo op moment for Witzel where there was a, a standoff, uh, as a man, uh, wielding what turned out to be a toy gun hijacked a bus on the bridge between Rio and Niterói, which is a neighboring municipality on the other side of the b- bay. 8:16 The, he gave the order, and the police snipers took this guy out, and Witzel celebrated like he, he was a Flamengo fan and they just won the Copa Libertadores. 8:26 He was, it was just like, you know, cheering, shouting, waving his shirt. It was really a bizarre spectacle. 8:33 And this, this is despite the fact, and he should know because he's apparently a ex-federal judge, that police protocol states that a successful operation of the kind is when the criminal is arrested, not killed. Right. 8:44 But in what ways was Witzel just more of the same? 8:49 Well, anybody who has been to Rio since tw- twenty-eight, uh, tw- 2019 when he took office can tell you nothing has really changed in terms of general government dysfunction, corruption, uh, social problems, uh, broken infrastructure. 9:04 So all six former governors of Rio have been jailed at some point for allegedly stealing public money, and Witzel could be the next in line. Why so? 9:15 Well, uh, the Brazilian Federal Police, uh, launched Operation Placebo in May. And Ben, what is Operation Placebo? 9:24 It's an investigation into various corruption schemes set on embezzling public money from Rio de Janeiro State's COVID-19 budget. 9:31 The feds are investigating corruption, corruption schemes, particularly in the construction of field hospitals. 9:36 And i- on May 14th, uh, the first stage of this probe discovered around 2 million reais with a group, um, which had been shared among a group that had allegedly defrauded contracts with emergency healthcare units. Right. 9:48 To give some context to listeners, since late in March, Brazil has been in a state of calamity, which is a legal instrument that allows public administrators to disregard strict public spending laws while the emergency situation persists. 10:06 It's a way to speed up public procurements in exceptional times. You know, as the old adage, uh, goes, never let a serious crisis go to waste. 10:15 So this is a golden opportunity for corruption schemes because many of the controls and oversights imposed on public spending is lifted at the moment. And what are investigators saying happened in Rio? 10:28 Oh, as we are talking, the, most of the investigation remains sealed, so we only know bits and bobs that have leaked, been leaked to the media or said by, uh, s- state officials about it. 10:38 But so far, the state's former health secretary was arrested and has decided to collaborate with the investigation. 10:45 Since the operation began in May, it has been revealed that the governor is suspected of having received kickbacks from government contractors and has been laundering the money through a law firm belonging to his wife. 10:57 Yeah, which is exactly the same scheme used by Sérgio Cabral, a former governor with dozens of corruption convictions on his resume. Business as usual, right? Yes, exactly. Some things don't change in Rio, apparently. 11:12 How did the investigation evolve since then? 11:15 Witzel had been sort of hoping to ride a wave of public, uh, opinion to position himself as a, uh, presidential candidate, uh, going forward and trying to be, ele- elevate himself to the national stage as a governor implementing, uh, 11:32 COVID-19 quarantine measures against wishes of the government. But in June, the state congress opened an impeachment process against him, and in an unprecedented, this is really unprecedented in Brazil, unanimous vote. 11:45 Ouch. And, and then what happened is the Superior Court of Justice, Brazil's second-highest judicial body, suspended him from office, which is also, the speed of which they moved is kind of unusual in Brazil. 11:58 And this, uh, for all intents and purposes, uh, y- unless he has some sort of Lazarus return from the dead in terms of his political career, is a nail in his coffin. 12:08 It's pretty hard to imagine Witzel rehabil- he rehabilitating himself politically, uh, given the fact that he's been caught for corruption, nothing's really improved in Rio since his tenure. 12:19 And, uh, he's kind of become a laughable figure. And he doesn't even have enough money to spread around to regain the loyalty of state lawmakers. It seems pretty bad indeed. And what does Witzel say in his defense? 12:34 Well, he says the same thing that everyone does in these situations, really, is that the accusations are nothing but political witch hunt. And does that argument hold any water? I believe so. I mean, what... 12:45 In Brazil, it's entirely possible that you can be taken out for something you're completely guilty of for political reasons. And according to many sources in the judicial system, prosecutors 12:55 might have a rock-solid case against the governor, but the political clo- climate does suggest that there is some political motivation behind, uh, these moves. What do you mean? 13:08 Witzel seems sort of a volatile and sort of figure with sort of delusions of grandeur. 13:12 And he saw himself as a future presidential candidate and tried to position himself almost from the get-go as someone who was to take national stage after Rio de Janeiro. 13:21 And Bolsonaro, who's also got his eyes on the 2022 elections, saw him as a possible threat. 13:27 And we also know that since last year, President Jair Bolsonaro has tried to interfere with the federal police, especially in Rio de Janeiro, because they've s- been, uh, looking into his family's dealings. 13:39 This was the reason for the fallout with former Justice Minister Sergio Moro, for instance. 13:44 Now, we've got the fact there's a new prosecutor general who has so far been very pro-Bolsonaro and submissive in terms of the president's dema- demands, uh, who's been asking for Witzel's arrest. 13:56 But so far, the courts have, had said no. 13:59 And we also have the fact that one congresswoman, very, very close to the Bolsonaro clan, predicted that Witzel's misuse of public funds would, uh, lead to him being targeted by the federal police. 14:10 And a few days later, they did knock on his door. 14:13 And then we have something to makes it even more messy and, uh, a little weird, is that the lead prosecutor of the case is a open Bolsonaro supporter who posts pro-Bolsonaro stuff in social media. Mm-hmm. 14:25 Yeah, that's intriguing. Yeah. It's, again, one of these cases where everybody's in the wrong. [laughs] Brazilian politics in 2020, pretty much. Ben, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. 14:37 [gentle music] Wilson Witzel's corruption scandal is anything but an outlier. Just this week, prosecutors in Rio charged former city mayor Eduardo Paes for corruption and money laundering. 14:54 He's accused of receiving over 10 million reais in kickbacks from construction company Odebrecht. After a short break, we will try to explain what makes politics in Rio de Janeiro so corrupt from left to right. 15:11 We'll be right back. 15:14 [gentle music] Are you looking to connect with institutional investors in Brazil? 15:33 Then you should seek out the good people at AMEC, the Brazilian Association of Investors in Capital Markets. 15:40 AMEC brings together around 60 asset managers and pension funds from Brazil and abroad, which have a combined portfolio of over $130 billion. 15:52 AMEC works to support minority shareholders' rights by fostering governance and stewardship principles that strengthen the market as a whole. 16:02 Plus, they have lots of content that will help you stay up-to-date with what is happening on Brazilian markets. And we know you like high-quality content from insiders because you're listening to Explaining Brazil. 16:15 See more at amecbrasil, and that's Brazil with an S,.org.br. 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[upbeat music] Mauricio Santoro is a political scientist and a professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. 17:50 He was born and raised in the city and knows its history like few. Mauricio, thanks for being back to our podcast. What's wrong with Rio? Okay, so what's the problem with Rio? 18:03 Why every governor that we elected in Rio ends in jail? Are we the most corrupt state in Brazil? I don't think so. Corruption is a very serious problem in Rio, of course, but so it is in other Brazilian states. 18:21 However, there are some differences in Rio about the political organization of corruption The big national parties in Brazil are not very strong in Rio. 18:34 Both the Workers' Party and the Social Democratic Party that dominated presidential politics in Brazil for over 20 years, they are not strong in Rio. So what we have here is a more personalistic type of politics, 18:51 more based in small political parties in, in very, uh, unstable alliances. 18:58 And I think that at the end of the day, that makes it easier to catch corrupt politicians because they don't have very strong institutional protection as perhaps we have in other Brazilian states. 19:15 And was it always like this in Rio? I mean, at one point, Rio was the country's capital, so you couldn't have a strong national party that wasn't strong in Rio. 19:26 But then in the '60s, uh, the capital was transferred to Brasília, and then we had a 21-year democratic hiatus. So what happened to Rio de Janeiro politics after the dictatorship? 19:40 Rio de Janeiro has a complicated political history because of the, the loss of, of the, the capital to Brasília and the fusion between the city of Rio de Janeiro and the state of Rio, something that happened in the '70s during the dictatorship, and it was part of a political plan of the military regime to make the city of Rio, which was at the time very left-wing, very progressive, part of a more conservative political machine in the, based on the small towns of the state of Rio. 20:17 So this is part of the explanation. But I also think that the economy explains that a lot. We don't have in Rio anymore a strong industrial base as we still have in São Paulo. 20:31 We don't have a very strong agribusiness sector as we have, for example, in the Midwest or in São Paulo. So politics here is more populist. It's more based on the informal sector or in these, uh, 20:49 trade unions of the civil service, not so much the modern representation of economic social classes like we have in other states. 20:58 And I think this is part of the explanation to why we don't have strong political parties in Rio. Everything here is more subtle, is more, uh, informal. 21:11 You're talking about a populist political culture, but Rio had very different people elected for governor from Leonel Brizola, a historical figure on the Brazilian left, to Anthony Garotinho, an evangelical radio personality, to Wilson Witzel, a former federal judge promising a tough-on-crime position. 21:33 But is there a common thread between all of them? I don't think that they have very much in common. Uh, well, Brizola is a different story. He was actually not born in Rio. 21:46 He was a politician from the, the south, from the state of Rio Grande do Sul, but he had a very strong national popularity. And when Brazil became a democracy again in the early '80s, uh, he was elected governor of Rio. 22:00 But, uh, he was never charged of corruption. He was never arrested. So I don't think that it's fair to compare him to the other governors that we are discussing. 22:09 But, uh, if, if we talk about the other politicians, I think that they are not very ideological, okay? So they don't have a, a strong political agenda. They are quite, uh, pragmatic. 22:24 They changed political parties a lot during the course of their careers. 22:29 So they more or less adapt themselves to the circumstances, and they tried to reach some kind of political deal with, uh, whoever was in, in the, the presidents of Brazil when they were governors. 22:42 And we cannot talk about Rio's political problems without talking about the presence of urban paramilitary groups, the so-called militias. How do they affect the political landscape in Rio? 22:55 Because one thing that is interesting is that one governor after the other seems to be involved in the same schemes, which suggests a more systemic problem rather than a matter of just a few rotten apples. It's true. 23:10 And also, we have this strong presence of organized crime in Rio taking part of political games. This is not something that began with the militias. 23:23 We could see this type of pattern, uh, in the 1940s, in the 1950s with Jogo do Bicho in, in Rio. And they were basically organized crime groups that controlled parts of the city or small towns, 23:40 and they made deals with the politicians. They gave money to the campaigns. During the dictatorship, they helped with political repression, you know, going against trade unions, for example. 23:53 So they, they all had something to offer to the people who were in power in Rio. It's not something that exists only in Rio. Sometimes we, we can see things like that happening in other states. 24:07 But perhaps it's stronger in Rio because the organized crime in, in this city and in this state, it's very fragmented. 24:16 We have several factions struggling for power in the state, and so they usually go after politicians a lot, a- and vice versa. 24:25 You know, politicians also look to their support For example, sometimes a politician wants to do campaign in a part of the city of Rio that is under the control of one of the paramilitary groups. 24:38 So he has to reach some kind of deal in order to be able to go there safely. 24:44 So if we look to other Latin American countries, it's more the kind of scenario that we are going to see in Colombia or in Mexico or in Venezuela. 24:55 And Rio is perhaps in Brazil the state that looks more like the other Latin American countries. We now have a governor whose political career looks all but over. 25:07 But the lieutenant governor and currently the acting governor, Claudio Castro, is also under investigation. 25:15 Then we have the speaker of the state congress, André Siciliano, who would be the next in line if push comes to shove, who is also under investigation. How do you see things playing out? 25:28 I think that there is no easy way out of the crisis in Rio. It goes across political parties. For example, the politicians that you mentioned, they are from different political parties and from different ideologies. 25:41 The acting governor is from a conservative party, from an evangelical and Catholic party. And the speaker of the assembly is from the Workers' Party. But they are united in these investigations. 25:56 So we are talking about a whole generation of politicians in Rio tainted by corruption scandals all around the political spectrum. So it's a very serious crisis. 26:07 And the political parties in Rio failed to offer alternatives to the voters, failed to renew themselves. 26:16 Well, there are a few exceptions, of course, new leaders that are appearing in politics that are beginning their political careers. But it takes a long time. Until they can consolidate themselves. 26:27 And even Witzel himself, I mean, 26:31 he appeared in 2018 as one of these outsiders that were claiming that they were going to clean the swamp, that they were going to clean the state of Rio de Janeiro from the corrupt politicians. 26:46 And it was very impressive how quickly that lie crumbled. I mean, right now, probably Witzel is going to be impeached in a couple of weeks at most. And probably he's going to be in jail until the end of the year. 27:02 So another governor of Rio in jail. And I think that this is a moment where the society of Rio, where we should all stop to think about what we're doing, about the people who we are choosing 27:18 for office in the city, in the state. It's a very serious situation. And Rio is also suffering the impacts of the economic crisis in a stronger way than the rest of Brazil. 27:31 For example, the state of Rio, it's financially dependent on the help of the national government. So that also creates problems for the governors because they have to talk with Bolsonaro. 27:43 They have to reach some kind of agreement with him, which is something that Witzel failed to do because he became a rival to Bolsonaro. 27:52 But now Claudio Castro is trying to do exactly that, trying to negotiate an agreement with Bolsonaro and his family. And of course, the Bolsonaro family, their political fortune is based upon Rio. 28:08 Most of them are politicians from Rio de Janeiro. So the state is especially important for them. And Mauricio, can we be optimistic about Rio? I would say that we would better be cautious about Rio. 28:25 There are no easy solutions to the troubles that Rio de Janeiro is facing right now. It is a long way until we can find a way out of this crisis. Mauricio, thank you. You're welcome, my friend. 28:40 Mauricio Santoro is a political scientist and a professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. If you like Explaining Brazil, please rate us with five stars. That will help more people find out about this show. 28:57 Or you can sign up to the Brazilian Report, the journalistic engine behind this podcast. 29:04 We offer a seven-day free trial, no strings attached, which gives you access to the website for a week without the need to insert any credit card information whatsoever. Just go to brazilian.report. I'm Gustavo Ribeiro. 29:20 Thanks for listening, and we'll see you here next week.
