elected president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (PT), was criticized by opponents for traveling to COP27 on a plane owned by a businessman José Seripieri Filho aka Junior, founder of Qualicorp and owner of QSaúde. This Monday (14th) PT flew to Egypt.
Federal deputies closest to the president Jair Bolsonaro (LP) surfaced on social media and focused on Lula’s relationship with a businessman arrested in 2020 for Operation Lava Jato in an investigation into alleged bribery funds for José Serra’s (PSDB-SP) Senate campaign in 2014.
Vice President Elect, Geraldo Alkmin (PSB), tried to keep the matter to a minimum. “The information I have is that it is not borrowed, [o empresário] going together at the COP. There is no credit, they are flying together on the same plane, more people are flying,” he said on Monday when asked about it in an interview in Sao Paulo.
In the midst of the controversy, allies of the president-elect claim he knew the trip would entail political costs. But allegedly out of need, they say, he decided to fly on a businessman’s plane.
The budget does not predict payment for the transportation of the elected president during transition🇧🇷 Since the election period has ended, it is also not possible to use the election fund reserved for election campaigns. PT, in turn, would not have had the resources to fund this and other trips planned before taking office, for example, to the US.
Alternatively, the Bolsonaro government could be asked to provide the aircraft, which was rejected even on security grounds.
However, during the preparatory meetings for the trip, other hypotheses were put forward, according to the allies.
The commercial flight option has been ruled out due to the impossibility of Lula transiting through the airport and even inside the plane without unrest, especially at a time when Bolsonaro’s passionate supporters refuse to accept the election results.
Embarrassed, the PT members avoided the subject. One of the coordinators of the transition, former governor Wellington Diaz, recommended that a consortium of governors of the Amazon region be sought out, to which Lula was invited. The PT finance minister declined to comment on the trip, and the party leader said Lula traveled as president-elect in his personal capacity.
On Monday evening, while participating in the Roda Viva program on the Kultura TV channel, Diaz was asked about this topic. He defended the attraction and said that there was no rule forbidding Lula from taking it.
“He [Lula] he is not yet the president of the republic, he does not use government flights. Today he is an individual – an elected president, but an individual. Because of this, there are no rules preventing you from hitchhiking. Either from São Paulo to Teresina (PI) or from São Paulo to Egypt,” the former governor said.
According to Diaz, PT did not have the resources to pay for the plane’s lease. “It’s been a trip guys… Where’s the crime?”
For Lula’s ally, this revelation could have been avoided, but Lula would have been, in his words, very “spontaneous”, that is, he made decisions impulsively, without considering the consequences.
As opened the column Monica Bergamo, from Sheet, the PT member traveled on a Gulfstream aircraft capable of carrying 12 people and having the autonomy to fly directly to an African country. Also are surrounded Lula’s wife, sociologist Rosangela Silva, Janja and former mayor of São Paulo Fenando Haddad (PT).
Lula and Seripieri have been friends for about ten years. During this year’s election campaign, the businessman was one of the first people the PT member agreed to meet to discuss his government’s proposals.
The owner of Qsaúde promoted private dining at his home, bringing together names from the business community such as Claudio Hermirio de Moraes of the Votorantim group and banker Luis Carlos Trabuco of Bradesco.
At that time, market participants showed great resistance to the name of the former president and even participation in meetings with him. In 2019, Seripieri sold half of his shares to Qualicorp and subsequently stepped down from his senior positions.
Luis Lima (PL-RJ), one of the MPs who spoke about the trip, wrote on social media that in 2020, Seripieri Filho, “the junior of Qualicorp”, was arrested for four days and that “nothing has changed”. Paulo Eduardo Martins (PL-PR) said Lula’s trip with the businessman was “for the good of democracy”.
André Porciuncula (PL-BA), Deputy Minister of Culture, ironically commented on Mārtiņš’ post, recalling Ivan Valente’s (PSOL-SP) tweet about the owner of QSaúde. The psolist spoke about the arrest of Seripieri Filho, saying that businessmen were corrupting the political system.
Juan Amoedoone of the founders of Novo and who was suspended by the legend after the announcement of the vote for Lulu in the runoff election, he also criticized the petist. “Flying Lula on a businessman’s plane – convicted or not – is absurd. Those who admire the president-elect and hope that he will make a good government should criticize his mistakes, not ignore them, ”he wrote online.
On the other hand, in an attempt to justify the plane ride, Lula’s voters disputed the information published in the press. On social media, PT supporters even claimed that the plane was chartered by the president-elect’s party, which is not true.
Philosopher Marcia Tiburi said on Twitter that the press is hiding that the plane was chartered. “When the press hides that the plane that will bring Lulu is chartered and paid for by the PT, disinformation is cultivated. This serves a culture of hatred for PTs, so-called anti-PTism. The Brazilian press is right-wing and, as such, has a spirit of revolution.”
State MP Elika Takimoto (PT-RJ) said journalists’ tweets about the businessman’s plane ride seemed organized. “From this it follows that there was an order from above to make these posts,” she wrote on the social network. He subsequently stated that “how Lula arrives in Egypt worries the press far more than Bolsonaro’s empty agenda until December.”
Influencer William De Lucca, who has over 280,000 followers, said Bolsonaro should lend Lula a plane. “It was just the acting president who offered Lula the FAB jet since Bolsonaro didn’t use any of them for work.”
Bolsonaro declined an invitation to attend this year’s Climate Conference, which brings together world leaders and delegations from several countries to discuss international action to mitigate climate change.
