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This Sunday, on the Monday of December 29, 1992, marks 32 years since the then President of the Republic, Fernando Collor de Mello, resigned from office so as not to run the risk of being impeached and ending up in prison. However, more than 32 years later, in 2025 the risk of ending up behind bars is imminent, for other crimes.
Former president and former senator of the Republic Fernando Collor de Mello, who escaped impeachment and arrest by resigning as president of the Republic, could be arrested in the first half of 2025 by order of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), which has already formed a majority to take him to prison for a period of more than 8 years, for passive corruption and money laundering. Collor has a history of tragedy with Acre.
Collor could face prison in 2025 because, according to the STF, he was involved in a case that involves receiving bribes from BR Distribuidora, a subsidiary of Petrobras, in the order of R$29.9 million, between 2010 and 2014, when he was a senator of the Republic. In the first half of 2025, the STF will judge the latest motions for clarification filed by the former president’s defense. The conviction, handed down in May 2023, resulted in eight years and ten months in prison for the crimes of passive corruption and money laundering.
In addition to the former senator, at the time, businessmen Luis Pereira Duarte de Amorim and Pedro Paulo Bergamaschi de Leoni Ramos were also defendants in the case. In the trial of the criminal case, there was no unanimity regarding the penalties. Of the collegiate votes, six ministers suggested sentences of four years and four months or more, while four ministers applied sentences of four years. Based on the average of individual votes, the STF formed a consensus and set the sentence at four years and four months.
Since his conviction, Collor has adopted strategies to avoid serving his sentence. He lost his privileged jurisdiction by not being re-elected in 2022 and tried to question the STF’s competence to judge him, in addition to filing appeals in lower courts. If they reject the embargoes, the sentence could be executed in 2025.
Fernando Affonso Collor de Mello, although he never set foot in Acre, a state he never visited, even when he was campaigning for the presidency of the Republic against PT member Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in whose state he won the election in both rounds of that campaign, his name is linked to a story of tragedy with the people of Acre.
Newspapers from 1992 print Collor’s face with headlines about corruption and resignation/Photo: Reproduction
Born on August 12, 1949, in Rio de Janeiro, son of Leda Collor (1916-1995) and Arnon Afonso de Farias Mello (1911-1983), federal deputy in 1950 and governor of Alagoas from 1951 to 1956, perhaps he is It was because of his father that he avoided Acre so much throughout his public life.
Arnon Afonso de Mello, governor of Alagoas and, after that, elected senator for three consecutive terms (1962, 1970 and 1978), was accused of, in December 1963, in the plenary session of the Federal Senate building, in Brasília, killing shot his colleague José Kairala.
In fact, he was trying to shoot Silvestre Péricles de Góis Monteiro at close range, who was also allegedly armed and had threatened to kill him, with shots in the mouth, if he went to the Senate gallery that day.
Instead of hitting his political opponent in Alagoas and declared personal enemy, Arnon de Mello ended up hitting Kairala, who, that day, was taking photographs in the plenary, alongside family members, as a reminder of his 90-day stint in the Senate, a role that he, a humble merchant from Brasiléia, in the interior of Acre, had taken on as the first deputy of the then senator José Guiomard Santos. Arnon de Mello was never formally charged with the murder.
With his father accused of a blood crime, Collor became the political heir of the family, which had been part of power in the Republic since the times of Getúlio Vargas, since his grandfather, Lindolfo Collor, father of his mother Leda, had been a minister and follower of Getulism.
As heir to the political estate, he was also mayor of Maceió from 1979 to 1982, appointed by the military dictatorship, and then elected federal deputy from 1982 to 1986 and governor of Alagoas from 1987 to 1989.
He was the youngest president in the country’s history, elected at the age of forty, by the National Reconstruction Party (PRN), being the first elected by direct vote of the people after the Military Regime (1964-1985) and the first to be removed temporarily through an impeachment process in the country.
He succeeded President José Sarney in the 1989 elections, in which he defeated Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the second round. Before these elections, the last time the Brazilian people had elected a president by direct vote was in 1960, with the election of Jânio Quadros.
His government was marked by the implementation of the Collor Plan, the beginning of a national privatization program and the opening of the national market to imports, which had an incisive impact on the increase in the car consumer market.
Fernando Collor announces his resignation to avoid impeachment/Photo: Reproduction
The plan, which was initially well received, ended up deepening the economic recession, contributed to by the loss, in 1990, of more than 920 thousand jobs; In addition, allegations of political corruption involving Collor’s treasurer, Paulo César Farias, made by his brother Pedro Collor de Mello, culminated in an impeachment process.
The process, before being approved, caused the president to resign from his position, leaving it to his vice Itamar Franco, hours before being convicted by the Federal Senate for a crime of responsibility, losing his political rights for eight years.
In the 2022 elections, with his political rights already recovered, he ran for the position of governor of Alagoas, coming in third place, with 14.71% of the valid votes. In May 2023, he was sentenced by the STF to a sentence of 8 years and 10 months in prison for passive corruption and money laundering.
His world began to fall apart when his younger brother, businessman Pedro Affonso Collor de Mello (1952-1994), became co-author of the book “Coming clean – The trajectory of a faker”which portrays the behind-the-scenes of his government.
