José Dirceu: ‘They are saying that the messengers want to return; We never left
Former Civil House Minister José Dirceu said on Friday, 28, that a group of PT members involved in the case of the monthly never left the party and politics. The statement was given to counter critics to him and the candidacy of former mayor of Araraquara Edinho Silva to the presidency of the PT.
“Now I hear about some critics of the candidacy that” the messengers want to go back. “First, I never left, neither Delúbio (Soares), nor the (John) Vaccari (grandson), neither João Paulo (Cunha), we never left,” said Dirceu, applauded by the public for speech.
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Dirceu himself rehearses a return to politics in 2026, when he should be a candidate for federal deputy, a role he held for three terms. As showed the EstadãoPresident Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva asked him to return, according to the former minister.
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Dirceu again told petistas that the monthly was a ‘scam’. The monthly scheme, as it became known, consisted of payment of tables to parliamentarians to ensure support for Lula’s ruling base between 2003 and 2004. Dirceu was sentenced in 2012 to 7 years and 11 months in prison in the process.
Four years later, in 2016, the Supreme Court Minister (STF) Luís Roberto Barroso granted pardon to the former minister of the Civil House within the monthly, but he remained in prison due to penalties from Lava Jato.
João Paulo Cunha, sentenced to six years in prison, served two years of the sentence. This until 2016, when the Supreme Court acquitted him after the then President Dilma Rousseff granted him pardon, a presidential forgiveness. Delúbio also received the same period of penalty and time in imprisonment until he received forgiveness.
Vaccari was sentenced to 24 years in prison at Lava Jato for the PT in the 2010 election. The sentence was annulled by STF Minister Edson Fachin in January 2024.
Dirceu participated in the inaugural act of Edinho’s campaign for the presidency of the acronym in the middle of a dispute within the party.
As the Estadão showed, the PT’s majority current, building a new Brazil (CNB) lives a crisis. A wing of this group, which Lula is part, does not accept Edinho, a name nominated by the president himself to assume the acronym.
The elections that will renew the PT summit, with a vote of the affiliates, are scheduled for July 6, with disagreements between Edinho and Gleisi Hoffmann herself, the last elected president of the PT and current Minister of Institutional Relations.
Edinho countered some of the main ones in his speech. “I feel offended when they say I want to pull the PT to the center,” he said. “With all the respect that tries to misunderstand me as a PT militant, I was the mayor who ruled with policies that characterized my left government. I did not give up the clash with pockets at the worst moment in our history, which was the pandemic. And my city hall polarized with Bolsonaro.”
The main reason for the decision is to control the PT treasury. The sum of the party and electoral funds of the acronym is in their $ 700 million per year. Edinho does not accept that Finance Secretary Gleide Andrade, a candidate for federal deputy, remains in office.
In the speech, Edinho denied the conflict, but made discreet criticism of Gleide. “I recognize merits at her work, as I also think that the party that has to advance democracy also needs to democratize the finance debate, to democratize the debate of elaborating its budget,” said Edinho.
He also appealed by the Union of the PT’s majority current. “There is no political construction without a political center. And CNB has always been the political center of the Workers Party,” he said. “I want to work to build a new PT majority field so we can be a party that values our instances.”
