By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 30 2005 (IPS)

"This spells the end for our last hope," declared Dircilea da Silva Vieira, reflecting the sense of disillusionment that has spread through Brazil over recent weeks as the government of Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva is hit by one corruption scandal after another.

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As a result, after voting for the leftist Workers Party (PT) in every election since it was founded by Lula in 1980, "I will never vote for Lula and the PT again," she stated, adding that many of her friends and acquaintances share the same view.

For his part, Helio Dutra still believes in Lula, "who is still my greatest hope." The president will succeed in weathering this crisis because of his good sense, predicted the PT stalwart, who was the secretary of sports in Belo Horizonte, the capital of the southern state of Minas Gerais, when the local government was led by the party in the 1990s.

But Dutra, a steadfast defender of ethics, admits that "there are rotten apples in the PT."

"All human beings are susceptible to errors, whether in politics, religion or anywhere else," he said. At the same time, however, he stressed that "Lula is not to blame," although he would not "bet his reputation on the rest of them" – referring to other PT leaders.

What is needed now is to determine who is in fact responsible and "clean up the PT and the other parties," by subjecting the political sector to the same unprecedented efforts undertaken by the current government to fight corruption in other spheres, added Dutra, a dentist and fervent Catholic.

The PT "is not the party of God, it also has a lot of demons," and should now strive to overcome the "arrogance" bred by power and return to its ethical and political principles, he said. On the contrary, if the PT becomes "a party just like all the others, there will be no reason for me to stay in it," he concluded.

These opinions sum up the difficulties facing Lula, his government and his party before a public that has grown used to hearing the PT declare itself an intransigent defender of ethics, but has now witnessed its attempts to evade congressional investigations of corruption allegations.

These charges are backed by a range of evidence and testimony, despite the fact that one of the main whistleblowers, lawmaker Roberto Jefferson, does not wield a great deal of credibility himself, noted da Silva Vieira.

Jefferson, formerly the president of the Brazilian Labour Party (PTB), accused the PT three weeks ago of bribing legislators from two allied conservative parties to ensure their support in Congress. The PTB is also a PT ally.

Jefferson himself is implicated in a scandal involving a bribery scheme in the state-run post office, but he believes it is acceptable for his party to obtain money illegally through public companies, because "everybody does it," he maintains.

PT president José Genoino and Lula’s former chief of staff José Dirceu categorically deny Jefferson’s allegations.

Nevertheless, Dirceu, who was purportedly responsible for overseeing the cash payments to allied party legislators, stepped down from his cabinet post last week to return to his seat in the Chamber of Deputies, or lower house of Congress, in order to defend himself, the government and the PT, he said.

This latest scandal could spark a further drop in the popularity of the government and Lula himself, a persistent trend already reflected in the most recent public opinion polls, commented Ricardo Guedes, director of the Sensus Institute polling firm.

The last survey conducted by Sensus, in late May, indicated that 39.8 percent of respondents held a positive view of the government, as compared to 41.9 percent the previous month. This drop in the approval rating was believed to have resulted from the post office corruption scandal involving the PTB and Jefferson, who subsequently retaliated with his own accusations against the PT.

More recent polls conducted by other firms have begun to reflect a further loss of confidence triggered by Jefferson’s allegations, but "to a lesser extent than expected," Guedes told IPS.

He believes that the government has been spared further damage by the fact that the economy is creating new jobs beyond the expectations of a population that "expects the very least," in addition to the social programmes that provide up to 40 dollars a month in income assistance to over six million Brazilian families.

These factors have helped bolster Lula’s personal popularity, noted Guedes, but confidence in the government has fallen to just over 35 percent, according to the most recent polls, and if it drops below the "critical point" of 33 percent, a subsequent recovery will be extremely difficult, he predicted.

Moreover, for the first time ever in a Sensus Institute survey, corruption was chosen as the number one reason "to not feel proud of Brazil," selected by 27.1 percent of respondents, and thus outranking violence – previously the leading reason – and poverty.

The latest poll by Datafolha, a survey firm affiliated with the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, revealed that 65 percent of PT members believe there is corruption in the government.

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