Eduardo Cunha

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This name uses Portuguese naming customs. The first or maternal family name is Consentino and the second or paternal family name is Cunha.
His Excellency
Eduardo Cunha
File:Eduardo Cunha em 1º de junho de 2015.jpg
President of the Chamber of Deputies
Assumed office
1 February 2015
Acting President: Waldir Maranhão
5 May 2016 – present
Preceded by Henrique Eduardo Alves
Personal details
Born Eduardo Consentino da Cunha
(1958-09-20) 20 September 1958 (age 65)
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Political party Progressive Party (1994–2003)
Brazilian Democratic
Movement Party (2003–present)
Spouse(s) Cristina Bastos Dytz (Divorced)
Cláudia Cruz
Children 4
Alma mater Cândido Mendes University
Religion Evangelicalism

Eduardo Consentino da Cunha (born September 20, 1958) is a Brazilian politician and radio host, born in Rio de Janeiro. He has been President of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil since 2015. BBC News labeled him as the "nemesis" of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.[1] He has been indicted in the scandal known as Operation Car Wash involving the state-owned oil company Petrobras.[2] Cunha was suspended as speaker of the lower house by Brazil's Supreme Court on 5 May 2016 due to allegations that he attempted to intimidate members of Congress, and obstructed investigations into his alleged receipt of bribes.[3][4]

Personal life

Born in Rio de Janeiro, on September 20, 1958, Eduardo Cunha is the son of Elcy Teixeira da Cunha and Elza Cosentino. His mother was descended from Italian immigrants from the town of Castelluccio Inferiore in the region of Basilicata, and through this Cunha also holds Italian citizenship.[5] He began working at fourteen, as an insurance broker. He worked as an auditor, in the firm Arthur Andersen, from 1978 to 1980. He graduated with a degree in economics from the Universidade Candido Mendes, and served as an economist at Xerox of Brazil, between 1980 and 1982.[6]

Cunha is the father of four children and is married to journalist Cláudia Cruz.

Political views

Eduardo Cunha is a conservative evangelical Christian. He seeks to have abortions banned, marijuana penalties increased, and further restrictions on homosexual activity. As an evangelist, Cunha has proposed legislation, titled The Law of Heterophobia (in response to the Law of Homophobia). The law demands a prison sentence of one to three years for anyone who forbids entry to a heterosexual in any public or private property, levies special rates at hotels or restricts the public display of affection.[7]

Political career

Elections with PDS and PMDB

His first contact with politics was working on the campaigns of Eliseu Resende, a candidate for state government with the Social Democratic Party (PDS) in the 1982 election, and Moreira Franco, a candidate for Rio de Janeiro government with the PMDB, in the 1986 election.[8]

First scandal (2001)

When Anthony Garotinho was elected Governor of Rio de Janeiro in 1999, he appointed Francisco Silva as the Secretary of Housing (with Cunha appointed as Sub-Secretary). However, Cunha was in office for just over six months, where he was forced to resign due to allegations of irregularities in no-bid contracts and favoring shell companies.[9] Then 2001, the State Audit Court confirmed that there were various irregularities in the bids of these shell companies, including the adulteration of the clearance certificate from state taxes.[10]

State Representative (2001-2002)

Thanks to the effort of the governor Anthony Garotinho, Cunha assumed a state representative vacancy in ALERJ, in 2001, which guaranteed him immunity against the Public Prosecutor's investigations. He was, then, elected with 101,495 votes in the follow-up campaign.[11]

Federal Representative (2003-Present)

File:Presidência do Senado (17316399604).jpg
Cunha holds a joint press conference with the President of the Federal Senate, Renan Calheiros, and other Congress members, 21 May 2015.

Cunha joined the Chamber of Deputies on 1 February 2003 representing Rio de Janeiro. He was elected in the 2006 elections to the office of the House, with 130,773 votes. He was re-elected again in 2010, through the PMDB with 150,616 votes.[12] Through the TSE (Brazilian Election Commission)) page, the deputy claimed to have received R$4.76 million in donations for the 2010 campaign, of which R$500,000 came from the construction company Camargo Corrêa.[13]

In 2013, he was elected leader of the PMDB in the House. The following year, there was a criminal complaint filed in the Supreme Federal Court against fellow Congressman (and former governor) Anthony Garotinho (PR-RJ) for libel and defamation. On his blog Garotinho referred to Cunha as a "deputy lobbyist". House aides and lobbyists with access to PMDB parliamentarians reported that Eduardo Cunha recorded on an agenda a list of companies - mainly linked to energy, telecommunications and construction - who benefited from parliamentary action. Later that year, he was re-elected for another term, obtaining 232,708 votes (the third most votes received in the State of Rio de Janeiro).[14]

Second scandal (2015)

Cunha was indicted in Operação Lava Jato (operation car wash), the scandal involving the state-owned oil company Petrobras. The prosecutors claim that he "took as much as US$40 million in bribes for himself and his allies, plundering Petrobras, the government-controlled oil company, while laundering money through an evangelical megachurch."[15] For the crimes, "prosecutors are requesting a potential sentence of 184 years in prison if the Supreme Court puts him on trial and convicts him."[16] During this period, Cunha provided political leadership to the movement to impeach President Dilma Rousseff on corruption charges relating to manipulating figures reported in government accounts. He was suspended from duty as speaker of the Lower House by Brazil's supreme court on the 5th May 2016, because of allegations of attempting to intimidate members of congress, and obstructing the ongoing Lava Jato investigation into his alleged bribe-taking.[17][18]

References

  1. ↑ Wyre Davies BBC News Rousseff's woes worsen as Brazil's protesters smell blood 17 August 2015
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2016/05/1768000-teori-afasta-eduardo-cunha-do-mandato-na-camara.shtml
  4. ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/05/speaker-of-brazils-lower-house-eduardo-cunha-suspended
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2016/05/1768000-teori-afasta-eduardo-cunha-do-mandato-na-camara.shtml
  18. ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/05/speaker-of-brazils-lower-house-eduardo-cunha-suspended

External links

Political offices
Preceded by President of the Chamber of Deputies
2015–present
Acting President: Waldir Maranhão, since 2016		 Incumbent
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