Brazil Cries 'Enough!'.(The World According to Alan Greenspan)(Business)(political corruption)

Byline: Mac Margolis

Against all odds, the country that beat hyperinflation targets another old scourge: official corruption.

Like most Latin Americans, Brazilians have never thought of their politicians as saints. "Rouba mas faz," or "He steals but gets things done," the voters said with a shrug over the cloakroom dealings of Adhemar de Barros, a famous Sao Paulo governor. Just as inflation was believed to fuel growth, bribes and payola were long seen almost as a lubricant that greased the wheels of public business. But on Sept. 12, when the Brazilian Senate cleared its scandal-hounded president, Renan Calheiros, of charges that he abused his office by using a lobbyist for a government contractor to pay his personal bills, something seemed to snap. Calheiros doggedly denied any wrongdoing, but from the bishopric to the bar association, Brazilians lashed out, calling the outcome a "disgrace" and a "national shame."

Perhaps it was the fact that Calheiros was rescued by a less than convincing 40-to-35 vote margin, with six key abstentions, after a closed-door session. Or it might have been the army of heavies with stun guns deployed to safeguard the Senate chambers from prying eyes. Whatever the reason, the backlash suggests that Latin America's biggest and perhaps unruliest country will no longer turn the other cheek to official misdeeds. Even allies doubt Calheiros can survive as Senate president, with further legislative and possibly court showdowns looming, and there are other signs, too, that Brazil is at a turning point. Last month the Brazilian Supreme Court indicted 40 Brazilian rainmakers in a massive money-for-votes scheme, including many former top aides and allies of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. The defendants face 113 counts, from pocketing public money to money laundering. The decision followed a painstaking probe by the Brazilian attorney general, a two-year congressional investigation and groundbreaking reporting by the combative Brazilian media. "Something is definitely happening among Brazilians," says Riordan Roett, director of the Western Hemisphere Program at Johns Hopkins University. "My sense is that society is finally saying 'Enough!' "

A decade ago, Brazil made history by launching an economic-stabilization plan, the Plano ...