Favorite this Sunday (6) in the internal election for the National Command of, Edinho Silva, former mayor of Araraquara (SP), is a political survivor of investigations and processes open in the wake of.
Having been a financial coordinator of the party’s presidential campaign in 2014, an intensely targeted period by the investigators, he was denounced by (Attorney General’s Office) along with President Lula and the former president in 2017.
The accusation was to integrate a criminal organization. He was also the target of searches in an operation of the group’s activities (owner of).
Unlike what happened to other petistas involved in the scandal, managed to overcome the wear and tear generated by the investigations and remained projection within the party. The pending issues, however, dragged on.
In 2024, in the Federal District Electoral Court of an investigation that investigated donations to the party made by contractor UTC. The procedure lasted eight years, without reaching a conclusion against the former mayor.
The defense cited, at the time, the “violation of the principles of the reasonable duration of the process” and said that the processing “for almost a decade causes obvious damage to anyone’s life.”
Earlier, in 2022, he ordered him to file an investigation that aimed, besides him, also the president of the PP, Senator (PI), in another unfolding of the
In 2018, Edinho was the target of the call that found alleged scheme of involving JBS at the Ministry of Agriculture. The latest public movement points out that the case was sent to the Electoral Court in Minas Gerais in 2022.
Sought, the defense said that all investigations that found the conduct of Edinho “were filed regarding him.” “After years of investigation, none of them resulted in any accusation.”
In 2016 and 2017, Edinho gave extensive testimonials to the (Superior Electoral Court) as a witness in the process that called for the revocation of the Dilma-Michel Temer plate in the 2014 election.
In these hearings, he exposed details of his performance at the time and spoke of the relationship with entrepreneurs in search of electoral financing.
In those years, business donations to political campaigns were cool, and the parties depended on large business conglomerates to fund their campaigns.
In 2014, the year of Dilma’s reelection, the function was up to Edinho, who said she was “the only expenses plaintiff” of the candidacy.
“I said to her [Dilma] That I had never fulfilled a similar task, but that I, even for the party experience I had, had a campaign administration proposal, “said the former mayor in an Electoral Court hearing in 2017.
In the following years, the PT’s relationship with these great donors was crushed in investigations, which launched suspicions of corruption in the negotiations. “All large Brazilian companies I searched for,” Edinho told the Electoral Court, citing from banks to “food and pharmacist companies”.
Edinho said he scheduled “meetings with how I scheduled with other companies, with the objective of raising funds for the president’s campaign.” He always stressed that the contributions were legalized and that there were no requests for payments via Caixa two, having acted “with the greatest possible correction”.
“You marked the first conversation, you opened the negotiation process, and donations occurred within this process, sometimes more easily, sometimes with more difficulty, but they were always a process that you were constantly scheduling dialogues, being charging donations commitments, anyway.”
An example of the difficulties was exposed in exchange for messages with then -contractor Andrade Gutierrez, Otávio Marques de Azevedo, in August of that year.
Dialogue obtained by the Federal Police in breach of confidentiality showed Edinho questioning the entrepreneur about the financial situation of “drastic”.
“I passed the problem of non -contribution and are asking you to do at least 10 until tomorrow not to paralyze important sectors of the campaign. I await return,” said the petista, according to the investigation report.
For the PF, “10” possibly referred to a request of R $ 10 million contribution.
The proximity to entrepreneurs who would eventually targets Lava Jato eventually caused headaches for years to the party leader.
The prosecution of criminal organization was quoted in relation to him and sent, because of the special forum, to the TRF-3 (Federal Regional Court of the 3rd Region). In 2016, Edinho was elected mayor, a position to which he was reelected four years later.
In the complaint, testimonials from whistleblowers led the then Attorney General to call him one of the “bribery collectors” of entrepreneurs. The case did not process in Curitiba or under the jurisdiction of the former judge.
The complaint also stated that the former mayor was amid executives’ efforts to curb investigations in the first year of Lava Jato in 2014.
His defense, at the time, said the complaint was “based on testimonials from whistleblowers, without the accused being even given the possibility of clarifying.”
Subsequently, whistleblowing entrepreneurs began to deny their collaboration agreements. Marcelo Odebrecht, for example, got the annulment of sentences after arguing that he was pressured to report.
The lawyer of the former mayor, Maíra Salomi, states that today “Edinho follows her role in public and political life without any criminal proceedings against him”.
“During the campaign [de 2014]all processes of collection of resources and contracting of services were conducted with transparency, submitted to internal audit and external inspection. All accounts were approved twice by the TSE, without any evidence of irregularity. “
