Washington, Sep 28 (IANS) A majority of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s principal individual campaign donors hold positions in Brazil’s government or state-owned companies, according to an analysis published by Folha de S.Paulo.
The newspaper, examining partial campaign-finance disclosures filed with Brazil’s electoral authorities, identified 76 individuals who had contributed at least 2,500 reais directly to Lula’s re-election campaign.
Of those donors, 57 worked in the executive branch or at state-owned companies, Folha reported.
Their contributions totalled 425,000 reais. That included 355,000 reais in bank transfers and services valued at 70,000 reais.
The figure represents a small part of the 66.9 million reais received by Lula’s campaign. About 65.2 million reais came from electoral and party funds transferred by Lula’s Workers’ Party.
The donations from government employees and state-company officials nevertheless exceeded the 283,000 reais collected by the campaign through crowdfunding.
Folha said it obtained the financial figures from DivulgaCand, the electoral data platform maintained by Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court.
The newspaper matched donors with government positions by searching personal tax identification numbers in Brazil’s transparency portal and checking names on the institutional websites of state-owned companies.
The donors held positions at different levels of government. They included ministers, secretaries, directors, advisers and executives at state-controlled enterprises.
Eight of the 57 donors also served on the boards of federal state-owned companies other than the institutions where they primarily worked. Such board positions provide additional compensation.
Five government ministers were among the donors identified by the newspaper.
Chief of Staff Minister Miriam Belchior contributed 28,000 reais. She also sits on the administrative council of Itaipu.
Labour Minister Luiz Marinho contributed 24,000 reais, Institutional Relations Minister José Guimarães gave 13,000 reais and Education Minister Leonardo Barchini donated 10,000 reais. Women’s Minister Márcia Lopes contributed 4,000 reais.
Guimarães denied that government officials had been instructed or encouraged to contribute. He said the donation was his own initiative.
The presidential campaign also denied requesting money from ministers, political appointees or other government employees.
It said the contributions were made voluntarily and individually, within the rules established by Brazil’s election law.
The Education Ministry, which had the largest number of donors identified by Folha, said it had not issued any instruction, encouragement or request for contributions.
The presidential Chief of Staff’s office, the Institutional Relations Ministry, the Labour Ministry and the Women’s Ministry similarly said any contributions were private decisions made by individual employees.
Folha reported that campaign fundraising increased sharply after September 13 as Workers’ Party supporters became more concerned about a possible defeat by Senator Flávio Bolsonaro.
Of the 386 individual donations made directly to Lula’s campaign, 314 were recorded after that date.
An unnamed government official told the newspaper that he contributed after learning that the campaign had received relatively few private donations. The report said mobilisation and fundraising meetings involving lower-level Workers’ Party members in government had also taken place, but participants said there was no pressure to contribute.
Election-law specialist Fernando Neisser of the Getulio Vargas Foundation said donations by political appointees were common and did not by themselves indicate wrongdoing. He said a legal problem would arise if there were evidence of coercion or direct pressure.
–IANS
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