When a world-renowned banker and a congressman were busted last week as part of the biggest corruption scandal in Brazil’s history, the international spotlight naturally fell on the young tycoon, Andre Esteves.
Yet to long-time Brazil watchers, it was the detention of the legislator — a ruling party dealmaker named Delcidio Amaral — that marked a far more worrisome development for a country desperately seeking to contain a deepening financial and political crisis. His arrest not only delayed government efforts to resolve this year’s budget dispute, but it also dispels a long-held belief that sitting lawmakers are all but untouchable because of a quirk in Brazilian law that affords politicians special treatment in criminal investigations.
While that can be seen as a true silver lining in the scandal — a sign that a legislative branch rife with alleged corruption will no longer be tolerated — it also injects a wild card into the crisis: Who will fall next and where will it all end? With the heads of both houses being investigated, it raises the possibility that Brazil’s political apparatus could unravel before ever passing the spending cuts and tax increases needed to restore investor confidence and ward off a new round of credit-rating downgrades.
Brazil Energy Insight 
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