The haunting of Janio and June 2013 – 06/18/2023 – Marcus Melo

Janio de Freitas argued, in this Sheet, in 2016, that impunity for wrongdoing was responsible for perpetuating corruption in the country. Like a curse, the lack of punishment for corruption made it reappear even with the same characters. In 1987, Janio denounced the collusion of contractors in the North-South bidding, having published in the Sheet in encrypted language the result of the event. He had done the same in relation to subway works, among others in Rio de Janeiro: denunciations that went down in history as exemplary cases of investigative journalism.

Janio’s comment was aimed at the appointment of former governor Moreira Franco to the Special Secretariat for Privatization, by President Michel Temer, amid accusations that he had negotiated with the main contractor of Norte-Sul the concession of an airport, when he occupied the Dilma Rousseff’s Ministry of Aviation. Janio also criticized the Rio affair prosecutor and the then PGR, Sepúlveda Pertence, for inaction in the cases in which they acted. The first “drilled him”; the second: “He dispatched him in silence to the dead file. He was appointed Minister of the Federal Supreme Court”.

The New Republic was born under the sign of the fight against impunity. It called for change. Ulysses Guimarães denounced them: “In the dictatorship, the abundant Faruks of corruption swarm and remain unpunished” who would be everywhere: Capemi, Coroa-Brastel, Água Espraiada. The focus on corruption and abuse of power led Brizola to baptize the PT as “udenistas in overalls”. The Constituent Assembly strengthened the institutions of control. The hope was that their holders would be proactive, not “shelving” processes. And that magistrates also punish anyone who wasn’t “black, poor and whore”!

June 2013 was a wake-up call that the promises of the democratic transition had not been fulfilled.

The exemplary punishment of wrongdoing in the monthly allowance also had Tocquevillian effects: instead of appeasing, it instigated revolt. The demonstrations reflected a deep malaise match with the political system on the part of ordinary citizens and on the part of the opposition, left and right. Millôr’s assertion that “ending corruption is the supreme objective of those who have not yet reached power” finds strong support in the empirical literature.

The flag of the fight against corruption is waved against those who have the pen to hire, appoint and pay.

But Janio’s curse now returns as a haunting. Even with the same characters. But it is qualitatively different: it is not just a matter of returning to the status quo of impunity for overturning convictions. Those who dared to change the state of affairs are being punished.

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