Brazilian politics

Dec 6th 2007
From The Economist print edition

AS THE president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros was perhaps the most powerful ally of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil's legislature. Seven months ago, the media, acting on tip-offs from the federal police, accused him of getting a lobbyist for a construction firm to make regular child-maintenance payments to his former mistress. On December 4th Mr Calheiros finally resigned his post.

Thus ended a tenacious rearguard action. As well as the link with the lobbyist, Mr Calheiros was alleged to have used shell companies to buy two radio stations and a newspaper in his home state, and to have paid for a dossier digging up dirt on his enemies in the Senate. He protested his innocence. Then his mistress was photographed for Playboy (in the same pose as Christine Keeler, a big-eyed brunette who ended the career of a British minister in 1963). Mrs Calheiros stood by her man. But on December 4th, moments before a crucial vote in the Senate ethics committee that would probably have ended his career, Mr Calheiros gave in. …