TheEconomist

Brazilian president of Senate, Renan Calheiros, will keep his mandate, as 81 senators just decided, a few minutes ago.

Calheiros was judged by his pairs under the charge of corruption and he received 40 votes of supporters, against 35 votes for impeachment and six senators that haven´t voted.

These six votes may have came from the 12 senators of Partido dos Trabalhadores-PT (Workers Party). showing the participation of president Lula da Silva´s party in this process.

Public opinion favors Calheiros resigning.

 He´s under fire in other three charges, all of them related to corruption (business with contractors and so on).  The scandal became public his affair with a young journalist (they have a child 4 years ago), whose pension he was paying with money comming from Mendes Junior S/A, a large engineering and road construction company.

The political crisis in Brazil goes on.

Senator Renan Calheiros, president of Brazil´s Federal Senate and of the National Congress, will probably loose his mandate as senator by the State of Alagoas, under charges of corruption acts discovered after the accusation of pension payments to jornalist Monica Veloso, mother of Renan 4 year old daughter.

The senator is still married to Veronica Calheiros.

As a distinguished member of the strong PMDB (Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement), who defeated the military rule in 1985 and now is allied to president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva´s Workers PArty (PT).

Lula tried to save his friend and may still have success in doing so tru the majority Government coalition has in Senate.

But the charges were so evident and the scandal lasted so long that Lula told people to let it go and try to solve the crisis as soon as possible because he - and the country - needs Senate being full opeational.

Senate has been paralized for the last quarter by Renan´s struggle to keep his job anyway.

It looks he won´t succeed and will have the same fate of former president Fernando Collor, also from Alagoas state, who resigned and lost his political rights for eight years under charges of corruption.

Last year Collor was elected senator after the 8-year period of punishment, but his role now is so ofuscated by his past that he decided to take a 4-months vacation, starting last week.

The main reason: not to be obliged to vote in Renan´s impeachment next week.

On the economic front, it´s expected for tonight the Central Bank announce about the basic interest rate, which the market wants to be cutted by 0,25 percent points.

Sao Paulo and Rio stock markets are on red now, following Dow Jones after bad news in US house financing market.

Dollar is woth R$ 1,94 which means everything is normal in Brazil at this moment.