POLITICS-ARGENTINA: Justice Closes in on Senate Bribery

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 1 2000 (IPS) - Argentina’s justice authorities acknowledged Friday there is evidence that bribery occurred in the Senate last April and led to the approval of a controversial labour reform package, unleashing a political scandal that promises to be the biggest since democracy was restored here in 1983.

In contrast to his earlier scepticism, federal judge Jorge Liporaci said Friday that the testimonies provided by two journalists are “serious and concordant …and permit the assertion that there were bribes, in other words, there were those who paid and those who received.”

The issue has been at the centre of Argentine news for the last two weeks and, even before there was any proof of corruption, nearly 90 percent of those surveyed in public opinion polls said they believed bribery had taken place – a percentage that underscores the ill repute of the Senate.

During the two consecutive terms of former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999), charges of corruption were a constant. Not only was the issue the number-one concern of the Argentinean people, but they accepted as a given that votes were bought and sold in the two houses of the Parliament.

But with the arrival of the Fernando de la Rúa government last December, there were high expectations that corruption would be wiped out. The battle now seems more difficult as illegal practices are more widespread than anticipated and there is apparently a great deal of complicity among the senators from all political parties.

The labour reforms had triggered debates, strikes and protests. Now parliamentarians and unionists alike are calling for the annulment of the legislative package, saying it would lack legitimacy if it were proved that it passed because lawmakers’ votes were bought.

Shortly before publicly recognising the progress made in the corruption investigations, judge Liporaci had requested the repeal of legal immunity of eight senators – seven from the opposition Justicialist Party and one from the governing Alianza coalition – in order to interrogate them as bribery suspects.

The scandal exploded when ‘La Nación’ newspaper reported a few weeks ago, without mentioning sources, that there was strong suspicion that millions of dollars had been paid to senators in exchange for their votes to approve a controversial law that changed the country’s rules on hiring and employment.

Two Justicialist senators – unbeknownst to their party’s leader in parliament – requested immunity in the case, but were unsuccessful due to the intervention of the president of the Senate, Carlos Alvarez, an Alianza member who is also the nation’s vice-president.

Alvarez, who was De la Rúa’s running mate on the ballot of the centre-left coalition based on a platform of transparency and anti- corruption, is now the leader of the campaign to purge the Senate of its corrupt customs.

“We want to show that these practices will no longer be tolerated, because in a country as impoverished as ours, if politics – which is a tool for transformation – are spoiled, then it is the market that will ultimately govern,” warned the vice- president.

Alvarez’ stance in favour of investigating the bribery charges, which is strongly supported by the president, has won him the enmity of the senators from the Radical Civic Union, the Alianza’s majority party.

“I am not a spokesman for the senators,” Alvarez asserted, “I must defend the institution of the Senate.”

Though judge Liporaci did not reveal what evidence he holds, he did say he has possession of tape recordings of dialogues involving senators. He said the collaboration of a La Nación journalist, who received the confession of a senator who had taken bribes, is “broad, concrete and conclusive.”

On Wednesday, La Nación published the anonymous statements of a senator who said, “We thought there would be impunity, that is why we got involved. Do think this is the first time?”

“The dangerous part is that some received more and other less, so some felt used …Here the code is that of the mafia, the system is perverted and everyone comes here and puts down their money. Businesses? Of course they do,” he added.

But the anonymous lawmaker did not realise that the day after the front-page interview appeared, the meeting between him and the journalist would be an open secret, forcing him to acknowledge the interview had taken place, though he denied he had confessed to a crime.

The newspaper, which had promised to the confidentiality of its sources, changed its policy and revealed Thursday that the confessing senator was the Justicialist Party’s Emilio Cantariero, who then refuted the story and said he would sue the reporter.

The first senator to talk to the government investigators in the case was fellow-Justicialist Antonio Cafiero, who reportedly provided the names of the senators involved from his party, but no proof. He then abandoned his party’s ranks in the Senate.

While the political scandal was surfacing, many lawmakers reacted as if this corrupt behaviour was nothing new or out of the ordinary.

On Friday, Alberto Rodríguez Saa, another Justicialist senator who abandoned the party line, assured “there was corruption in the Senate that led to the passage of the labour reforms,” in addition to numerous backroom deals in the chamber’s labour committees.

“We found ourselves suddenly involved in debates we knew nothing about and forced by the party to hastily vote on bills that would reach us from the party leadership. The system is very shady and serves a select few,” commented the senator, alluding to the existence of an “elite” group within the upper chamber.

“Even without a confession, in the Senate there is very strong and very serious evidence” of bribery, Rodríguez Saa told ‘Pagina 12’ newspaper.

The senators who face losing legal immunity are mostly from the Justicialist Party, including the party’s leader in the Senate, Augusto Alasino, who since the beginning of the scandal has asserted the charges are a conspiracy against them.

As for the De la Rúa administration, the president is strongly in favour of getting to the bottom of the issue – though he says there is no need for anyone to resign, for now. He thus alluded to Labour Minister Alberto Flamarique and secretary of State Intelligence, Fernando de Santibañez.

Both men were mentioned by various sources in the investigation, but the judge maintains there is currently not enough evidence to call them in for questioning, adding that he has not ruled out the possibility that private companies may have been behind the bribery.