RIO DE JANEIRO, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's prominent politicians on Wednesday denied any involvement in a massive corruption scandal investigated by the Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court released a list for corruption probes against eight ministers, three governors, 24 senators and 42 House representatives.
The suspects have all been incriminated by former executives of construction firms, such as Odebrecht, that paid bribes and kickbacks to officials in exchange for lucrative construction contracts. But most of the politicians on the list denied wrongdoing.
With about 100 high level officials being placed under investigation, local news magazine Veja stated that President Michel Temer insisted that the government "cannot stop" and that he will "let the courts work," indicating that he does not intend to suspend the ministers accused of participating in the scheme.
However, with the heads of both houses reportedly facing corruption allegations, the Congress did stop on Wednesday, a session in which legislators would decide on whether to grant federal aid to states ended without a solution.
It remains unknown how much strain the denouncements of corruption will put on the Temer presidency or whether it will compromise the idea of institutional stability which Temer tries to represent, following the impeachment of his predecessor, Dilma Rousseff.
Brazil will have presidential and gubernatorial elections in 2018 and all the major players in the country, from former Presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff to Senators Aecio Neves and Jose Serra, who lost the most recent two elections, have been mentioned in the denouncements.
It remains to be seen how many viable presidential candidates Brazil will have in the next elections.
