Former Governor of the Federal District José Roberto Arruda claims that the purchase of Banco Master by BRB (Banco de Brasília) will lead to the Operation Pandora’s Box scandal, for which he was convicted, and will be tried today in Small Claims Court.
“If everything they said against me is true, after I received R$20,000, two years before the elections, and declared it in the Electoral Court, I will go to the Small Claims Court, close to the Master and BRB case,” Arruda joked before the commission.
Arruda is trying to return to politics after almost 15 years. He is a pre-candidate for the federal district government, and will join the Social Democratic Party on December 15 at a ceremony in Brasilia alongside the party’s national president, Gilberto Kassab.
Arruda, the focus of the PDP’s monthly allowance, was arrested and convicted in cases arising from the 2009 Pandora’s Box operation, when he was photographed receiving a sum of money. In 2022, the Supreme Electoral Court blocked his candidacy for federal MP.
But this time, recent changes in calculating the ineligibility period in the Clean Slate Act make the former governor’s situation legally complex.
Under the device approved by the National Congress and approved by Lula (the Workers’ Party), the period of disqualification is limited to eight years and is calculated from the decision that decided the loss of the mandate, and not from the end of the term.
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