Waiting for the wreckage
A sexual scandal and the perils of sitting it out
Special Agent Darius Michaud (Terry O’Quinn) examines the vending machine closely. When he sees the explosive device, his face turns somber. Another agent asks if he can defuse it. He nods and tells everyone to leave the building. Alone in the room, he sits in front of the vending machine, buries the head in his hands, and waits. His hunched torso is framed on both sides by carefully stacked packs of processed food resembling the sins of good men. There is no way all that neatness can be disturbed. But the bomb goes off.
Later in The X-Files: Fight the Future (Rob Bowman, 1998), the audience learns that Michaud was there to guarantee the outcome as part of a cover-up in a sprawling conspiracy involving extraterrestrials and a cabal of powerful men — they are all men. Heavy RFK Jr. stuff. But the image of a man just waiting for disaster to happen is powerful enough on its own.
You might think contemporary political leaders would do anything to avoid explosions, especially in the face of scorched-earth opponents and neverending scrutiny in social media. This is also the age of polycrisis, a tentacled beast shaped by climate emergency, economic instability, and geopolitical conflict. You might think a politician would avoid another item on this list. Apparently, that is not what Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva thought.
In June, the Brazilian president became aware of allegations that one of his ministers, Silvio Almeida, had sexually harassed another member of his cabinet, Anielle Franco. The incident had apparently taken place at the end of 2023. Franco confided it to some colleagues, then to higher-up government officials. Almeida denied any wrongdoing whatsoever. The personal details of all involved made it even more of a mess. Almeida, a distinguished black professor, held the human rights ministry. Franco, also black and a rising political star herself, was the racial equality minister. She is also the sister of Marielle Franco, the Rio de Janeiro councilwoman who was murdered in 2018 for getting in the way of local organized crime.
There is more. According to off-the-record accounts, Almeida and Franco were the only black ministers in this administration and not exactly allies. Franco was the first lady’s favorite. Almeida was sort of detached from his peers despite a discreet but powerful public performance.
Since being elected, Lula has fought tooth and nail against a conservative Congress that managed to snatch most of the federal budget mainly for obscure transfers that benefit municipal allies, the so-called secret budget. This environment gives him little wiggle room for his desired policies.
Despite some good news (formal employment growth, heating economy), June presented many challenges for the president. Reports showed a record-breaking semester of wildfires, the speaker of the House of Representatives blocked or made difficult the voting of many economic bills, inflation projection rose in the aftermath of massive floods in Southern Brazil, the communications minister — a political appointment from an allied right-wing party — was the target of (another) investigation on corruption, Congress almost voted a bill that would charge aborting rape victims with homicide, Congress insisted on maintaining damaging tax breaks that benefited selected lobbying industries, and neighboring Venezuela was gearing up for yet another shady election. It was against this background that Lula learned about the Almeida affair, sat it out, and moved on.
Sitting things out is a staple of Brazilian politics. Just look at the response to the floods, landslides, and droughts that plague parts of the country with increased intensity each year. ‘We didn’t know it would be so damaging this time’ is the standard reaction, as if environmentalists and scientists have not been making models and warning that these things would happen exactly like that for years. Organized crime terrorizes another state? Does crime continue to be one of Brazilians’ top concerns? This is political poison. Leave it to the states to deal with it, even if the issue requires concerted national effort. Too much trouble! It is the governors’ responsibility, anyway. If it spills on the federal government’s approval ratings, send in the military for the umpteenth fruitless time — bread and, you know, circus. The problem only gets worse, but one hopes it will drip onto the next hapless chap. Or it might settle down on its own; somebody somewhere might do something. Thus, Michaud waits.
Then came September. Reporters knocked on Franco’s door again, but she decided to remain silent; that is, she did not confirm the rumor, and she did not deny it either. Meanwhile, the news site UOL published an investigation about moral harassment in the human rights ministry. Dozens of former staff accused the minister and two senior officials of fostering a toxic workplace. Me Too Brasil, an NGO, disclosed other women’s accounts of sexual harassment involving Almeida. Another female politician also posted a video revealing she had been a victim. Finally, Franco came forward and confirmed the rumors about her.
Almeida reacted in the worst possible way. He used official channels to refute the accusations. His defense in a nutshell: all those claims were false, and he was being persecuted. Worst of all, he threatened to throw the federal controller at Me Too Brasil and used the race card even in the face of black victims. This is even more baffling because Almeida is himself a lawyer. If anything, he was reinforcing the moral harassment accusations against him.
Federal police disclosed that they had been aware of the incident since January but did not open an investigation because they were not prompted to do so. Apparently, a journalistic exposé convinced them otherwise.
The outcry was loud, clear, and immediate. Rumor has it Janja, the first lady, tilted the balance decisively. By the end of the week, amid pressure from all sides of the political spectrum, Lula fired Almeida. “The president considers the situation untenable considering the nature of the sexual harassment accusations,” read his official statement.
Ironically, Lula was spared a bigger embarrassment because all the other issues beyond his control converged in the same pivotal week. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes had just shut down XTwitter. This was the latest round after Elon Musk repeatedly refused to comply with judicial orders and suspend far-right users who had been doxxing and threatening public officials. Jair Bolsonaro had called his supporters to march for the impeachment of Justice Moraes in Sao Paulo on the following Sunday, Brazilian Independence Day. Those very literal fires from June? Now, they were breaking new records. Almost two-thirds of the country was engulfed in smoke, a historical drought stoked the flames of criminal fires and dried up Amazon rivers — another severe climactic emergency was born. The National Congress, as usual, ignored all of this to prop up a bill that would pardon Bolsonaro and the January 8 rioters that had attempted a coup d’etat — the police investigation is still ongoing. Only a handful of opposition lawmakers bothered to shout ‘Hypocrisy’ and boost their personal brand when the Almeida scandal flared up. Still, the whole affair left a bruise. Lula is a seventy-something leader who has already been through two corruption scandals, ended up in jail once, and is seriously considering running for office again. He cannot afford additional bruises.
Obviously, Lula could have avoided the risk by dealing with the issue immediately. There is even a precedent for this in recent Brazilian history.
The Itamar Maneuver
In October 1993, Itamar Franco (no relation to Anielle) was in a tough spot. The former vice-president became president when his predecessor, Fernando Collor de Mello, was impeached the previous year. His cabinet, which included soon-to-be Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, had been busy trying to tame soaring inflation, a legacy from the military regime. The inflation rate was much lower than its peak (6800%) in 1990, but 2000% is still not a comfortable scenario. Congress was hostile and dealt Franco several legislative defeats. A Special Investigation Committee in Congress were probing their peers for siphoning money from the federal budget. (Yes, reader, yes.) Henrique Hargreaves, Franco’s Chief of Staff, was mentioned during the proceedings. The press was on it.
Franco was on it, too. Hargreaves, a close friend, vehemently denied any wrongdoing. Still, the president asked him to step down to prove his innocence. If he succeeded, Franco told Hargreaves, he would get his job back. Four months later, Hargreaves was cleared of the accusations and got his job back despite being a fairly ineffective chief of staff.
His frankness made Franco immune to this kind of blackmail. In 1992, he appointed Jutahy Magalhaes Junior his social works minister. Antonio Carlos Magalhaes (no relation to Jutahy), the all-powerful governor of Bahia and Magalhaes Junior’s political enemy, did not like it the least. ACM claimed the minister was dirty, and he had proof. Franco asked the governor to bring him the evidence. So, ACM made a show of crossing the Three Powers Square towards the presidential palace with a political entourage in tow to deliver a pink folder full of alleged evidence to the president. The stunt backfired when the governor stormed into the president’s office only to find him surrounded by dozens of journalists and photographers. Could the governor present the damning evidence to the media? ACM stuttered and deflated and left after coming up with some feeble excuse.
No heavy scandal tainted Franco during his brief mandate. Yet his successors would scarcely borrow from his book. The sit-out remains the political template, a symptom of esprit de corps prone to deviancy in all levels of the public — and private — sphere. Franco did not throw his friend under the bus. Still, he made his minister understand the power of appearances for political leaders, even if he refused to condemn Hargreaves personally. Rather, the president encouraged him to submit to due process, as it should be. If there are any sins, let them be purged.
Today, sins cannot be so easily concealed behind the facade of good men. They pile up wobbly in dark rooms, waiting for seismic rumors to bring them down. In this day and age, tremors register everywhere. Unless you are covering up for an extraterrestrial conspiracy, your worst line of action is waiting for the room to crumble to pieces.