RIO DE JANEIRO -- Brazilian President Michel Temer, fighting to save his job, has received a boost from a decision by the country's top electoral court to reject allegations of illegal campaign finance and keep him in office.
The Superior Electoral Tribunal's 4-3 vote late Friday gave Temer a lifeline amid widespread calls that he resign in the face of a corruption scandal.
Last month, a recording emerged that prosecutors said captured Temer endorsing hush money to ex-House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, a former Temer ally serving 15 years in prison for corruption and money laundering. Soon after, details of another bombshell emerged: that Temer was being investigated for taking bribes.
Temer has denied wrongdoing and vowed to stay in office.
However, the fallout from the scandals was so great that many observers expected that the electoral court judges would be swayed to remove Temer from office over unrelated campaign-finance allegations. While in theory Brazilian justices are impartial, they are often highly political. Indeed, two of the judges who voted in Temer's favor were his appointees.
"While Temer is hard for many people to digest, he will likely remain in office," said Alexandre Barros, a political risk consultant with the Brasilia-based firm Early Warning. "Instability is bad for everybody. So many will say at this point, 'If we have to pay the price for sticking with Temer, let's do it.'"
While Temer has overcome a huge hurdle to staying in power, he still faces threats on many fronts. The attorney general's office is considering pressing charges against him for what it says are his receiving bribes, as well as over the audio recording and over accusations he tried to obstruct an investigation into billions of dollars in inflated contracts and kickbacks to politicians.
Temer's approval rating is hovering around 9 percent, and he has a tenuous hold on his ruling coalition.
The campaign-finance case was filed shortly after the 2014 presidential election by one of the losing parties. It alleged that the ticket of President Dilma Rousseff and running-mate Temer, then the vice presidential candidate, gained an unfair advantage through illegal campaign contributions. Temer took over the presidency last year after Rousseff was impeached and removed for illegally managing the federal budget.
The campaign-finance allegations were bolstered in recent months by testimony over plea bargains signed by current and former executives at the construction giant Odebrecht, a company at the center of the probe of inflated contracts and kickbacks. The executives described tens of millions of dollars in bribes and illegal campaign contributions, including to the Rousseff-Temer ticket.
Over four days of deliberations, the judges argued about whether those plea bargains should be considered in their decision. They also clashed over the strength of the original evidence and whether punishments should be doled out when illegal campaign finance was widespread.
A guilty verdict would have annulled the 2014 victory, thus stripping Temer of the rest of his mandate. It could also have also made both Temer and Rousseff ineligible to take office for eight years. While Temer had vowed to appeal any conviction, it would have weakened his hand in a climate of corruption scandals and a public furious at politicians.
"Even the rocks know that the political environment is contaminated. Now is the time for the rescue," said Judge Luiz Fux, voting to remove Temer.
Napoleao Nunes Maia said the court should not have an activist role.
"Electoral justice can't be used as a third round of elections without violating the electoral order," said Maia, adding that a lack of moderation would "risk annihilating the sovereign will of the people."
The main parties in Temer's coalition have stuck with him so far, but there are reports of worry in the ranks that being associated with his government could be detrimental to re-election campaigns next year.
Temer claims he can deliver major overhauls of labor laws and the country's pension system. While deeply unpopular among Brazilians, many economists say the overhauls are necessary to help pull Latin America's largest nation from recession.
"Temer will argue, 'I'm the guy who is going to give the country the bitter remedy that will cure it," said Carlos Manhanelli, political marketing specialist and chairman of the Brazilian Association of Political Consultants.
A Section on 06/11/2017