Brazilian congresswoman reports minister threats after denouncing scheme with stooge female candidates in the president's party
Minister denies threats and says the deputy wants to defame him
Federal Deputy Alê Silva (from Social Liberty Party, or PSL, same party as president Jair Bolsonaro) says the Minister of Tourism, Marcelo Álvaro Antônio, threatened her at a meeting with co-religionists at the end of March in Belo Horizonte - she was not present and received information from other people. The statement was made in an interview with Folha de S. Paulo. The deputy denounced the existence of a scheme of stooge female candidates that would be commanded by the minister.
On Wednesday (April 10 2019), the deputy was heard at the Federal Police in Brasilia, in a spontaneous testimony, and asked for police protection. She should be heard again in the coming weeks.
The minister of the Bolsonaro government denies making the threats and says she is campaigning to defame him in search of more party space. Alê was the first congresswoman to report the scheme that would exist in the party in the state of Minas Gerais.
The case of the stooge candidates of the PSL, the president's party, is investigated by the Federal Police and the Public Ministry in Minas Gerais and also in the state of Pernambuco.
Alê Silva says that she discovered the scheme after the 2018 elections, based on reports from party politicians and a survey with the accountability data of the female candidates that would be facade. The minister would have set up the scheme to receive resources without the campaign for those candidates actually being made, with the assets going to companies linked to his cabinet advisors - he was a federal deputy.
"I promised in public life to fight corruption and I could never be silence with the emergence of a focus of corruption so close to me. I felt obliged to bring the facts to the attention of the Public Prosecution Service. At first I was silent for fear of the reaction of those involved. Now there have been serious threats, which have come about through the minister's interlocutors", says the deputy.
Despite the complaint, the politician does not believe that the president was aware of the scheme. "I do not believe in Bolsonaro's involvement in all this. I believe he was as much a victim as I was. He was and is being as much a victim as I am for believing the wrong person. "
Four female candidates from PSL in Minas Gerais have already stated that they have been used or have received proposals to serve as stooges for the party. Four others are being investigated.
Source, translated by the blogger.
Janaina Paschoal, a colleague of Alê Silva's in the party, is demanding the president to fire the minister and show he actually cares about the women in his party.
