Eduardo Cunha

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Eduardo Cunha (2015)

Eduardo Cosentino da Cunha (born September 29, 1958 in Rio de Janeiro ) is a Brazilian politician of the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB) and a radical evangelical radio preacher. From December 2015 to May 5, 2016, he was the President of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies . The BBC News titled him as Dilma Rousseff's " Nemesis " . He is charged with Operation Lava Jato involving the state-owned oil company Petrobras . Cunha was dismissed as Speaker of the House of Commons by the Brazilian Supreme Court on May 5, 2016 on allegations of intimidating members of Congress and obstructing an investigation into his alleged acceptance of bribes. On September 12, 2016, the Chamber of Deputies voted 450:10 to withdraw his mandate, as it was considered proven that he had lied about his bank accounts in Switzerland.

politics

Cunha belongs to the Assembleia de Deus , an evangelical Pentecostal church of particular importance in Brazil. He is against abortion; In his opinion, abortion, which is legal in Brazil only in a few cases ( rape and mortal danger for the mother), should be prohibited in principle. He is for a tightening of the penalties for cannabis possession and for a restrictive attitude towards homosexuality , which he wants to have "treated".

In 1989 he was part of the election campaign team of Fernando Collor de Mello and after his victory was thanked managing director of the state telecommunications company Telerj , but lost the post after Fernando Collor's resignation because of allegations of corruption against him. Eduardo Cunha is said to have been involved, but was never prosecuted.

In 2000 he became Undersecretary in the Social Housing Office of Rio de Janeiro , but had to resign after six months due to irregularities. Orders had been given to fantasy companies and party friends at inflated prices. After that, he still held various state posts, and his name kept appearing in corruption scandals. He found support from Governor Anthony Garotinho , with whose help he reached the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro for the years 2001 to 2002, albeit not without problems. Since 2003 he has been a member of the Chamber of Deputies of the National Congress for the state of Rio de Janeiro .

From 2011 he liked to adorn himself with folkloric initiatives and tried, without success, to introduce a draft for a “heterosexual day” into parliament in order to establish the “Dia do Orgulho Heterossexual” (day of heterosexual pride) in law in Brazil.

Cunha became President of Parliament in the 55th legislative period in December 2015. He occasionally opened parliamentary sessions with verses from the Bible. As a business-friendly evangelical, he belonged to a bipartisan faction of evangelicals that hold almost 15 percent of the parliamentary seats after the shift to the right in the congressional elections in late 2014 . In order to win majorities for conservative bills, the religious have teamed up with other groups: on the one hand the "zero tolerance faction", which consists mainly of former police officers and soldiers, and on the other hand the "agrarian faction", which represents the interests of the large landowners - against small farmers and indigenous peoples fighting for their land titles. An amendment to the constitution is to transfer the demarcation of indigenous protected areas to Congress. This alliance is popularly known as the BBB parliamentary group, for “Bancada do Boi, Bíblia e Bala” (in German parliamentary group of bulls, bible and lead).

In the context of the Petrobras corruption scandal , it became known that Eduardo Cunha has a number of accounts in Switzerland, including four with Bank Julius Baer . He had previously denied under oath that he had bank accounts abroad. Cunha is said to have collected $ 40 million in bribes in his political career . In April 2015, proceedings against Cunha for “ money laundering and bribery of foreign officials” were opened in Switzerland . He even got the Swiss on the track, because after the first accusing reports in Brazil, he instructed the Julius Baer client advisors to transfer his accounts to his wife's name. According to the Panama Papers , he is in contact with anonymous Mossack Fonseca offshore companies . Cunha is associated with the offshore company Penbur Holdings SA by several key witnesses of " Operation Lava Jato ".

Cunha against a run for months in Brazil impeachment in the ethics committee of the Congress. And although he belongs to the PMDB, a coalition party in the government, he is openly opposition politics against center-left President Dilma Rousseff and he is pushing for impeachment proceedings against the president himself.

On May 5, 2016, the Supremo Tribunal Federal (Supreme Federal Court) ordered the revocation of the parliamentary representative of Parliament President Eduardo Cunha. The court justified this with the abuse of office to thwart the investigation into his involvement in the Petrobras corruption scandal. The previous Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies, Waldir Maranhão , who is also suspected of corruption in the context of Operation Lava Jato , was the interim successor as Parliament President . In mid-September 2016, the Brazilian House of Commons finally decided with a large majority to withdraw his mandate from Cunha. He was arrested in October 2016.

Web links

Commons : Eduardo Cunha  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Brazil: The dismantling of the Dilma Rousseff . diepresse.com. May 3, 2016
  2. ↑ Wyre Davies: Rousseff's woes worsen as Brazil's protesters smell blood. In: BBC News of August 17, 2015. Retrieved September 18, 2015.
  3. ↑ Cunha explicou suposta venda de casa para traficante . oglobo. globo.com. Retrieved September 13, 2016 (Portuguese)
  4. ^ Expanding Web of Scandal in Brazil Threatens Further Upheaval , New York Times. August 21, 2015. Retrieved September 13, 2016. 
  5. ↑ http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2016/05/1768000-teori-afasta-eduardo-cunha-do-mandato-na-camara.shtml
  6. ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/05/speaker-of-brazils-lower-house-eduardo-cunha-suspended
  7. ↑ Cunha explicou suposta venda de casa para traficante . O Globo .
  8. ↑ Simon Romero: Brazil's Congress Expels Lawmaker Who Led Ouster of President - NYTimes.com .
  9. ↑ http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/brasilien-rousseffs-gegenspieler-aus-den-eigenen-reihen.1773.de.html?dram:article_id=326013
  10. ↑ Iolando Lourenço Câmara desarquiva projeto de Cunha que cria o Dia do Orgulho Heterosexual. In: Agência Brasil of February 11, 2015. Retrieved September 18, 2015 (Portuguese).
  11. ↑ Cláudia Schüffner, Paola Mouro: Âncora de "O Rio merece respeito", Cunha se ampara no eleitor evangélico. In: Valor Econômico of March 18, 2011. Retrieved September 18, 2015 (Portuguese).
  12. ↑ Cattle, Bible and Bullets , evangelisch.de, May 28, 2016
  13. ↑ The real reason Dilma Rousseff's enemies want her impeached , The Guardian, April 21, 2016
  14. ^ Parliament versus President in Brazil: Uprising of the Hypocrites , Spiegel, April 18, 2016
  15. ^ Expanding Web of Scandal in Brazil Threatens Further Upheaval , New York Times. August 21, 2015. Retrieved September 9, 2015. 
  16. ^ Boris Herrmann: Multiple Depression , Süddeutsche Zeitung
  17. ↑ Panama Papers: The Power Players . Retrieved April 4, 2016.
  18. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger : Evangelist with a gray vest , accessed on December 7, 2015
  19. ↑ Brazil: President of the Parliament Cunha loses his office. Zeit Online , May 5, 2016, accessed May 5, 2016 .
  20. ^ Mariana Oliveira, Renan Ramalho: Ministro do STF afasta Cunha do mandato e da presidência da Câmara. In: O Globo G1. May 5, 2016, Retrieved May 7, 2016 (Portuguese).
  21. ↑ Rousseff opponent loses parliamentary mandate due to corruption . Spiegel Online, September 13, 2016
  22. ↑ Eduardo Cunha arrested . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of October 21, 2016, p. 4.
personal data
SURNAME Cunha, Eduardo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cunha, Eduardo Cosentino da (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Brazilian politician (Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro)
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Rio de Janeiro