{"id":2353,"date":"2017-07-30T10:43:20","date_gmt":"2017-07-30T10:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armando.info\/?p=2353"},"modified":"2017-07-30T10:43:20","modified_gmt":"2017-07-30T10:43:20","slug":"in-2013-maduro-or-capriles-made-almost-no-difference-to-odebrecht","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/in-2013-maduro-or-capriles-made-almost-no-difference-to-odebrecht\/","title":{"rendered":"In 2013, Maduro or Capriles made (almost) no difference to Odebrecht"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Today's \r\npresident of Venezuela, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, received $35 million dollars from \r\nBrazilian construction company Odebrecht for his 2013 election campaign. In \r\nMarch of that year, the maximum leader of the self-proclaimed Bolivarian \r\nRevolution, Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, had died of cancer. Maduro, Ch\u00e1vez's former minister of \r\nforeign affairs, had to face presidential elections just a month later, although \r\nin some ways anticipated, because the commander himself had designated him as \r\nhis successor in a speech on television - his last public act - on December 8, \r\n2012. Despite the chieftain's explicit endorsement, Maduro had to struggle to \r\nwin a tight victory in the April 2013 presidential election, according to \r\nofficial figures, with only 1% of the votes ahead of his opponent, opposition \r\ncandidate and Miranda state governor Henrique Capriles \r\nRadonski.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Odebrecht's \r\ncontribution to the pro-government campaign was already known from the \r\ndepositions of Brazilian publicist Joao Santana and his wife, Marina Moura, \r\nbefore judicial authorities investigating the Lava Jato<\/I> scandal, the scheme of bribes \r\nand commissions that the national civil engineering companies, with Odebrecht at \r\nthe helm, created to ensure their participation in major infrastructure and \r\npublic works projects. It is a scheme that these corporations exported to other \r\ncountries as they developed an international expansion of their businesses that \r\nran in parallel with the projection of the political influence of Brazil and the \r\ngovernment of In\u00e1cio Lula<\/I> Da Silva \r\ntowards large regions of Latin America and Africa, \r\nespecially.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t
Santana \r\nand Moura, who advised Maduro's 2013 campaign, had revealed that Odebrecht paid \r\nat least seven of the $35 million of its bill.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
But \r\nnow new and more precise details of the relationship arise. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
Odebrecht's \r\nExecutive Director in Venezuela, Euzenando Azevedo, presented a sworn statement \r\nlast December 15 at the Attorney General's office in the state of Sergipe, on \r\nBrazil's northeastern coast. The powerful former Odebrecht representative in \r\nCaracas took advantage of the figure of \"rewarded delations\" established by \r\nBrazilian law, which has allowed the Brazilian authorities to investigate the \r\ncorruption scheme of the so-called Lava Jato case, through protected witnesses \r\nwho confess in exchange for procedural benefits. So far 78 people, including top \r\nexecutives of the companies involved and their respective financial operators \r\n-the so-called doleiros<\/I>- have preferred to offer their testimonies in \r\nthese conditions.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
From \r\nAzevedo's account, presented to the prosecutors Heitor Alves Soares and Leonardo \r\nCervino Martinelli, and in the company of his lawyers, Carla Domenico and Sergio Ferraz de Campos, \r\nsome endorsements have just leaked to the press and feed this report. \r\nThis testimony implies simultaneously, by paradox or irony, both adversaries of \r\nthe disputed electoral campaign of 2013, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro and Henrique Capriles \r\nRadonski. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\n
50 millions 'in their pockets'<\/h2>\n\n\n
There \r\nis no doubt that Maduro arrived at the Miraflores presidential palace in 2013 \r\nwith the decisive support from Odebrecht. In return for the money, the now \r\npresident would have guaranteed the company the same favorable conditions that \r\nit already enjoyed with his predecessor and mentor, Hugo \r\nCh\u00e1vez.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n
To \r\nthis end, Maduro never met in person with the Brazilians. He relied on the \r\nintermediation of the then-coordinator of his electoral campaign, Am\u00e9rico Mata, \r\nwho, on behalf of the Venezuelan government, asked for 50 million dollars to \r\nguarantee the construction company the updating of payments - which in Venezuela \r\ncan be easily delayed by the delinquency of the State or by the procedures of \r\napproval of foreign currency necessary to overcome the exchange control regime - \r\nand the participation in future contracts of \r\nworks.<\/p>\n\n
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