Jader Barbalho

Jader Barbalho
Jader Barbalho
	Barbalho in 2011
Senator for Pará
	Incumbent
	Assumed office ; 7 April 2015
Preceded by	Fernando Ribeiro
	In office; 28 December 2011 – 30 January 2015
Preceded by	José Nery
Succeeded by	Fernando Ribeiro
	In office; 1 February 1995 – 5 October 2001
Preceded by	Almir Gabriel
Succeeded by	Fernando Ribeiro
Federal Deputy for Pará
	In office; 1 February 2003 – 1 February 2011
Constituency	At-large
	In office; 1 February 1975 – 14 May 1981
Constituency	At-large
President of the Federal Senate
	In office; 14 February 2001 – 19 September 2001
Preceded by	Antônio Carlos Magalhães
Succeeded by	Ramez Tebet
Governor of Pará
	In office; 1 January 1991 – 3 April 1994
Vice Governor	Carlos Santos
Preceded by	Hélio Gueiros
Succeeded by	Carlos Santos
	In office; 15 March 1983 – 15 March 1987
Vice Governor	Laércio Franco
Preceded by	Alacid Nunes
Succeeded by	Hélio Gueiros
Minister of Social Security
	In office; 29 July 1988 – 15 March 1990
President	José Sarney
Preceded by	Renato Archer
Succeeded by	Antônio Rogério Magri
Minister of Agrarian Development
	In office; 22 September 1987 – 29 July 1988
President	José Sarney
Preceded by	Marcos Freire
Succeeded by	Leopoldo Pacheco Bessone
Personal details
Born	27 October 1944 (age 80); Belém, Pará, Brazil
Political party	MDB

Jader Fontenelle Barbalho (born 27 October 1944) is a Brazilian politician, businessman and landowner from the state of Pará. He is currently a member of the PMDB party and a Senator for Pará. He is the father of Hélder Barbalho, former mayor of Ananindeua, Pará and currently governor of this state. Also, he is the former husband of Federal Deputy Elcione Zahluth Barbalho.

Barbalho is a national figure, known throughout Brazil, albeit a controversial one. There have been raised numerous allegations of corruption and mismanagement of public funds against Barbalho, who owns newspaper Diário do Pará and is part owner of a local TV station (TV Tapajós) of the leading Globo Television network. Starting a political career in Belém with humble possessions, Barbalho became a millionaire after decades in public office.^[1] He has held the offices of Federal Deputy over four terms, State Governor twice, Senator thrice and Minister twice.

In 2000, Barbalho was the President of the PMDB party and Senator when a wave of corruption allegations against him took national headlines, involving embezzlement of public funds at the Superintendência de Desenvolvimento da Amazônia (SUDAM - Superintendence for Amazon's Development) development agency and the Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária (INCRA - National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform). Barbalho was forced to resign the office, later briefly arrested, and the SUDAM was closed. However, he was subsequently elected Federal Deputy in 2002 and 2006 and Senator in 2010.

Biography

Youth and education

Jader (as he now spells his first name),^{[clarification needed]} was born in Belém, capital of Pará. Jader's parents are Laércio Wilson Barbalho (father) and Joanelle Fontenelle Barbalho (mother). Jader studied law at the Federal University of Pará (Universidade Federal do Pará), graduating in 1971, and he became a student leader during Brazil's repressive military dictatorship that was installed after the military coup of 1964.

Public offices held

Belém city alderman (Vereador) from 1967 to 1971
Pará state deputy (Deputado Estadual) from 1971 to 1975
Federal deputy of Pará (Deputado Federal) from 1975 to 1983, and from 2003 to 2010
Pará state governor (Governador do Pará) from 1983 to 1987 and from 1991 to 1994
Senator of Pará (Senador) from 1995 to 2001 and actually from 2011 on

He was also the federal minister of agrarian development and reform and of social welfare (1988–1990).

Scandals

In the 1990s, Jader was involved in several corruption scandals and risked impeachment. Facing the threat of impeachment in connection with fraud and corruption scandals, he resigned from the Senate in October 2001.

Barbalho was implicated in a funding scandal at the regional development agency the Superintendency for Development of the Amazon (SUDAM) where over 2 billion dollars went missing. He is alleged to have used his power base in the Amazonian state of Para to influence which projects were approved by SUDAM. SUDAM was closed down in 2001 by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso because of the corruption allegations.^[2]

On 22 February 2002, Senator Antônio Carlos Magalhães gave an interview to state prosecutors in which he hinted at corruption involving Cardoso, Barbalho, the PMDB, the PFL, and the Supreme Court. The interview, which was leaked to the press, prompted Cardoso to begin sacking government appointments linked to Magalhães, most notably cabinet ministers Rodolpho Tourinho (mines and energy) and Waldeck Ornelas (social security) on 23 February.

In 2002, with public opinion favouring investigation into allegations of government corruption, the opposition sought the votes of 27 Senators and 171 Federal Deputies in Congress necessary to constitute a joint working committee (CPI) against Barbalho. On 8 May 2002, after the opposition had apparently secured these votes, Barbalho canceled a joint session of Congress and thereby prevented the opposition from bringing the issue to the floor. Afterward, political maneuverings persuaded enough legislators to change their minds, and the CPI threat was ended. On 16 May Saturnino Braga, the rapporteur of the Senate Ethics Committee, concluded that Magalhães and the government leader in the Senate, José Roberto Arruda of the Federal District, were guilty of having violated secrecy rules in the June 2000 vote that expelled Federal District Sen. Luis Estevão from Congress. After damaging testimony from the director of the Senate data-processing system, who stated that she broke into the voting system under orders from Magalhães and Arruda, the Senate Ethics Committee recommended the impeachment of Magalhães and Arruda for having broken Senate decorum. Rather than risk impeachment and a loss of political rights for eight years, Arruda resigned on 24 May; Magalhães followed suit on 30 May.

With Arruda and Magalhães out of office, Congress, at risk of becoming ineffectual, continued to be mired in scandal as more allegations of past corruption involving Barbalho surfaced. A growing number of investigations into fraud in the state Bank of Pará, SUDAM, and the National Land Reform Institute revealed the involvement of Barbalho when he was governor of Pará and minister of land reform. Barbalho took a leave of absence from his post as senate president on 20 July. In the face of mounting evidence and the likelihood of impeachment, he resigned from the Senate on 4 October, following the same path of Magalhães and Arruda.