Another corrupt Brazilian minister resigns

This video says about itself:

Brazil: Culture Vs. Interim Government

19 May 2016

Artists, musicians and activists across Brazil occupy government buildings to oppose the new government’s shutting of the ministry of culture, women, racial equality and human rights. Some even made a special opera for interim President Michel Temer.

From teleSUR in South America:

Brazil’s Temer Loses Another Minister over Alleged Corruption

The scandals, resignations, and a series of unpopular measures have made the coup-imposed government increasingly unpopular.

Henrique Eduardo Alves, tourism minister in Brazil’s Senate-imposed government, was forced to step down Thursday after testimony from a prominent informant linked him to a massive corruption scandal.

Alves is the third minister to leave the scandal-ridden government of Michel Temer, who was installed after the country’s Congres voted to temporarily oust President Dilma Rousseff from power.

Romero Juca was the first causality. He was dismissed after it emerged that he had conspired with the Supreme Court and military commanders to ensure Rousseff’s ouster as part of a plot to put a stop to a corruption investigation involving the state oil company, Petrobras.

Last month, Temer’s minister in charge of transparency and accountability, Fabiano Silveira, was forced to resign when leaked conversations revealed that he plotted with a prominent opposition figure to protect corrupt officials from investigation.

Alves’ resignation is the result of testimony from Sergio Machado released by the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Machado is a former senator from Temer’s party who ran the shipping arm of Petrobras for over a decade. He has been cooperating with authorities looking into the scandal.

Machado told prosecutors that Alves, who served four decades as a congressman, solicited 1.55 million reais (US$450,000) in campaign funds from the Petrobras corruption scheme. Machado said the contributions were made legally but resulted from kickbacks owed by engineering companies that received Petrobras contracts.

Testimony by the former oil executive also linked Temer to the scandal, who reacted strongly to the allegations.

Machado’s accusation seemed to shake Temer, who held a hastily organized press conference.

Temer said it was “irresponsible, ridiculous, mendacious and criminal” to suggest, as Machado did, that he had sought campaign funds for his party from the graft scheme, the first direct link implicating Temer in the scandal.

The string of accusations against members of the Senate-imposed government, along with the resignations, is serving to undermine the case made by many Brazilian politicians that it was necessary to oust Rousseff in order to address corruption in the country.

Rousseff was ousted by the Senate when it vote to proceed with impeachment proceedings against her. However, she is accused only of mishandling government budget accounts and has not been linked to the Petrobras scandal.

As many as a dozen of the 55 senators who voted last month to put Rousseff on trial are now undecided, according to surveys by Brazilian media. If just a couple of them change sides the Temer camp would fall short of the 54 votes needed to convict Rousseff and oust her permanently.

More and more of the Brazilian public is also turning against the Temer government. According to a new poll by Vox Populi, two-thirds of Brazilians have a negative opinion of Temer’s government and 32 percent think he is worse than expected.