Twenty years separate the third term of the Presidency of the Republic and the political scandal known as, in the first government of and to this day used by opponents to attack the party.
If at the time there were allegations of internal betrayal and apologies to the population, the feeling that prevails in the party, today, is that the acronym was wronged, although the convictions were defined with the votes of the majority of the ministers of the (Federal Supreme Court). The episode, even though its adulthood, is still treated internally in the PT as a taboo.
The prosecution arose from a PTB -associated deputy, when a report of the post office fell on his nominees and began to imply his participation. Backed, Jefferson countered on June 6, 2005, stating that the Lula administration paid allowance to PL and PP deputies, then on the government base for its faithfulness.
Described as a political support purchase scheme in Congress, the monthly reached the petista cream, imploded the party summit and forced Lula to recalculate the route to escape an impeachment process in his first term.
Among the 40 reported, were key pieces in the PT gear, such as the then Minister of the Civil House, the party president, José Genoino, the treasurer Delúbio Soares, the secretary general, Silvio Pereira, and the former mayor João Paulo Cunha. All were removed, convicted and arrested, except for Pereira, who made an agreement to provide community services in exchange for the suspension of the process.
Genoino in July of that year, after an advisor to then state deputy José Guimarães (CE), his brother, was arrested in the act at Congonhas Airport, in São Paulo ,. The episode was one of the most emblematic of the political crisis. Then Minister of Education, Tarso Genro left the command of the portfolio to assume the presidency of the PT.
“My function was to rejoice the pieces,” Tarso told Sheet.
One of the most critical petist paintings about the monthly, he ruled out the need for the PT, as an institution, to make any self -criticism for the scandal. “The mea-mulp has already been done by the court. People have been convicted,” he said.
For the former minister, “at that time there was no clear and determined line of separation between illegal campaign financing and state extortion for political advantages.”
Delúbio Soares, in charge of managing the petist coffers, the funding of party campaigns and allies through what he called “unconnected resources.”
Pressured, Lula lamented the episode by making a pronouncement to the nation on August 12, 2005: “I mean to you, with all the frankness, that I feel betrayed. Betrayed by unacceptable practices of which I was never aware.”
He added, “The PT has to apologize. The government, where it made a mistake, has to apologize.”
The statements occurred after the marketer Duda Mendonça, responsible for the 2002 campaign, to admit party receipts abroad. Investigations later pointed out that one of the scheme’s forms of financing was diverted money from Banco do Brasil. Eighteen deputies even had the cassation requested.
The case would still take years to generate punishments in court.
In 2012, with the judgment of the scandal by and the condemnation of 24 people, the PT’s internal perception of the monthly changed. In the party, there was criticism of the performance of Minister Joaquim Barbosa, rapporteur of the process and now retired, who said there was a “vast tuition distribution scheme”, of which “half of the congress knew.”
But the tone in the PT was not directly confronted to the authorities of the case, as it would occur years later in. The investigation triggered in Curitiba and it later contributed to the party to reveal the speech and to claim persecution.
José Dirceu, in a statement to SheetHe said he was transformed into a bandit and corrupt “overnight.” In the monthly, he was condemned on the basis of the so -called Fact Domain Theory, applied against the leader of an organization for the science of crimes committed – the concept, debated by jurists, is criticized by petistas.
“They had one goal: to reach the government and President Lula and deconstruct the PT. It is true that the PT leadership nuclei in the government, the House and the party itself were involved in the so -called monthly and left their positions. Time proved that the ultimate goal was to defeat our political project and President Lula,” said Dirceu.
The removal of Dirceu, Delúbio and Genoino reconfigured the entire party structure. As head of the Civil House, Dirceu himself was quoted to succeed Lula in the presidency. He was replaced in the folder by the then unknown Minister of Mines and Energy, Dilma Rousseff, who would be elected president in 2010.
For political scientist Bruno Wanderley Reis, controversial judicial understandings in the monthly paved the way to Lava Jato and reduced the credibility of actions to combat corruption, feeding the antisystem discourse.
“There was a manner and a naturalness with which, at that time, not only the government, but parties were establishing agreements, passing checks without legal protection. Now, to frame this as active corruption within the government and passive corruption in Congress, needed a lot of jurisprudential innovation,” he said.
Tarso Genro says that although the complaints were correct, the spectacularization of the scandal changed the course of investigations. “From a certain moment, the investigations detached from all legality.”
For political scientist Juliana Fratini, the fact that the monthly is associated with the PT, not to other parties, also contributed to the feeling of injustice. “If the monthly occurred, many parliamentarians were aware and benefited from the resources that the party intended,” he said.
The petistas themselves have reinforced today that the complaint came from Roberto Jefferson, arrested on charges of and resist gunfire in 2022. Dirceu called him, in the note, “pathetic and discredited figure.”
The messengers, as those involved in the scandal are called, gradually returned to party life. Dirceu and Delúbio even prepare candidates to in 2026.
Petistas sought by the report refused to speak openly about the topic and asked to be heard under reserve. Despite the defense to the convicts, the matter is still taboo. A member of the national management said that there is embarrassment, among them, the use of the word “monthly” and the weight it carries – the term is avoided even by Lula.
“Zé Dirceu knows what it is like to be a lie victim. Here is companion Delúbio, who knows what it is to be a victim of the lie,” Lula said at the ceremony in February this year.
The president, even with the nods to his former trusted men, chose to imply the context of his speech.
The PT was sought by Sheetthrough its advice, for an institutional position on the subject. The return via message (“the PT will not speak”) exposed the wound that still afflicts the party even after 20 years.
