The Senate President Renan Calheiros smiles during the session in the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff to the National Congress in Brasilia. (AFP Photo)
Rio De Janeiro:
With President Dilma Rousseff's impeachment case moving to the Senate, the fate of Latin America's biggest country rests in part on Renan Calheiros -- a man, who like most Brazilian lawmakers, faces hair-raising legal problems of his own.
Calheiros is president of the Senate and will play a central role in how the final stages of impeachment unfold.
From deciding tactical questions like the timing to setting the overall tone, the 60-year-old will be key.
So as the upper house prepares to vote on opening an impeachment trial in mid-May, who is Renan Calheiros?
Odd as it sounds, to many Brazilians what really stands out about this crucial but generally discreet official is his hair -- or rather an extraordinary mission to get more of it.
Fits right in
Even in a country awash with corruption and abuse of power, Calheiros' use of an Air Force jet to fly from the capital Brasilia to the northeastern city of Recife for a hair transplant caught the public imagination.
Brazilian newspapers combed through the details of the embarrassing 2013 episode, right down to the number of hairs added during the operation: 10,000.
But Calheiros, who later paid back the 27,000 reais (currently about $7,500) cost of the flight, remained unruffled. He also survived a scandal over accusations that he allowed a lobbyist to pay child support to a lover he got pregnant.
He now faces potentially even more serious allegations of taking bribes in a huge embezzlement network unveiled at state oil company Petrobras.
But fact is that in the surreal world of Brazilian politics, Calheiros' issues barely stand out.
According to Transparencia Brasil, an anti-corruption watchdog, no less than 60 percent of senators have been convicted or probed in crimes.
Scruples?
Still, the Senate will feel a lot more welcoming to Rousseff than the lower house, where Sunday's vote on authorizing impeachment proceedings resembled a political bear pit.
"With the senators we will have a relationship that is absolutely different to that with the deputies of the chamber," Rousseff said Monday.
That doesn't mean senators are angels.
Senators' rap sheets -- often dating from previous posts in regional politics -- include everything from tax evasion, money laundering and embezzlement to drunk driving and, in the case of one senator, Telmario Mota de Oliveira, suspected cock fighting.
But senators tend to have more experience and professionalism and that could play in Rousseff's favor, said Daniel Vargas, a specialist of public law at the FGV think tank in Rio.
Rousseff's lawyers say the charges against her -- that she illegally used creative accounting to mask the depth of government budget problems during her 2014 reelection -- are far from impeachment worthy.
In the lower house debates, opponents barely bothered listening, prompting Rousseff and her allies to say she was being railroaded in a constitutional coup.
The senators, however, are expected to show more scruples, according to Vargas.
"It would be fair to expect them to be a bit more legal than political," he said.
No need to rush
"They know that one of the key questions now is not only whether they actually form a majority enough to impeach the president, but to produce a decision whose motives are accepted by everyone," Vargas said.
Calheiros already showed his independence on Monday, resisting pressure from the even more scandal-plagued speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha -- mastermind of the impeachment drive -- to move in quickly for the kill.
"There are requests to speed up the process, but we won't be able to accelerate it in a way that appears hurried. We can't put it off either. We will defend the legal process," Calheiros said.
Buying time by arguing her case in front of people who listen may be Rousseff's last hope, Vargas said.
"It might be that in six months from now the mood in the country and especially in the Senate will change and who knows what's going to happen."
Calheiros is president of the Senate and will play a central role in how the final stages of impeachment unfold.
From deciding tactical questions like the timing to setting the overall tone, the 60-year-old will be key.
So as the upper house prepares to vote on opening an impeachment trial in mid-May, who is Renan Calheiros?
Odd as it sounds, to many Brazilians what really stands out about this crucial but generally discreet official is his hair -- or rather an extraordinary mission to get more of it.
Fits right in
Even in a country awash with corruption and abuse of power, Calheiros' use of an Air Force jet to fly from the capital Brasilia to the northeastern city of Recife for a hair transplant caught the public imagination.
Brazilian newspapers combed through the details of the embarrassing 2013 episode, right down to the number of hairs added during the operation: 10,000.
But Calheiros, who later paid back the 27,000 reais (currently about $7,500) cost of the flight, remained unruffled. He also survived a scandal over accusations that he allowed a lobbyist to pay child support to a lover he got pregnant.
He now faces potentially even more serious allegations of taking bribes in a huge embezzlement network unveiled at state oil company Petrobras.
But fact is that in the surreal world of Brazilian politics, Calheiros' issues barely stand out.
According to Transparencia Brasil, an anti-corruption watchdog, no less than 60 percent of senators have been convicted or probed in crimes.
Scruples?
Still, the Senate will feel a lot more welcoming to Rousseff than the lower house, where Sunday's vote on authorizing impeachment proceedings resembled a political bear pit.
"With the senators we will have a relationship that is absolutely different to that with the deputies of the chamber," Rousseff said Monday.
That doesn't mean senators are angels.
Senators' rap sheets -- often dating from previous posts in regional politics -- include everything from tax evasion, money laundering and embezzlement to drunk driving and, in the case of one senator, Telmario Mota de Oliveira, suspected cock fighting.
But senators tend to have more experience and professionalism and that could play in Rousseff's favor, said Daniel Vargas, a specialist of public law at the FGV think tank in Rio.
Rousseff's lawyers say the charges against her -- that she illegally used creative accounting to mask the depth of government budget problems during her 2014 reelection -- are far from impeachment worthy.
In the lower house debates, opponents barely bothered listening, prompting Rousseff and her allies to say she was being railroaded in a constitutional coup.
The senators, however, are expected to show more scruples, according to Vargas.
"It would be fair to expect them to be a bit more legal than political," he said.
No need to rush
"They know that one of the key questions now is not only whether they actually form a majority enough to impeach the president, but to produce a decision whose motives are accepted by everyone," Vargas said.
Calheiros already showed his independence on Monday, resisting pressure from the even more scandal-plagued speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha -- mastermind of the impeachment drive -- to move in quickly for the kill.
"There are requests to speed up the process, but we won't be able to accelerate it in a way that appears hurried. We can't put it off either. We will defend the legal process," Calheiros said.
Buying time by arguing her case in front of people who listen may be Rousseff's last hope, Vargas said.
"It might be that in six months from now the mood in the country and especially in the Senate will change and who knows what's going to happen."
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