Lower house speaker says he will not quit

Lower House Speaker Eduardo Cunha declared Monday (Oct. 19) he is fully entitled to hold the post of Speaker of the House. Cunha gave a statement after documents allegedly proving Swiss bank accounts open in his name and his family's were released.

"Here [the presidency of the House] there is only one way for me to leave, which is to quit, and I will not quit. So those who think they can count on my ouster, just forget it: I will not quit," Cunha declared.

The congressman denied to be under pressure to step down and said he is seeking support from allied parties and from his own party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), to continue holding the post of speaker of the House. And he considers to be speculation the information leaked about this issue.

About the charges involving him, Cunha announced that he reaffirms what he had declared in a statement on Friday (Oct. 16) about documents forwarded to Prosecutor-General's Office by the Office of the Attorney-General of Switzerland, and released in the news program Jornal Hoje, broadcast by TV Globo.

The lower house speaker's wife, Claudia Cruz, and his daughter, Danielle Cunha, were also named in the petition. Among the documents sent to Brazil and presented in the news program, there were copies of Cunha's passport used to open the account, in addition to his home address in Rio de Janeiro, in a house complex at Avenida Heitor Doie Maia, in Barra da Tijuca, and phone numbers of the National Congress and the presidential palace.

Because of the charges, the Prosecutor-General's Office (PGR) had requested to open an investigation against Cunha. The request had been granted by Supreme Court Justice Teori Zavaski, responsible for the examining the charges of Operation Car Wash at the Supreme Court (STF). On the request, PGR said that the deputy received bribes from Petrobras contracts until September 11th 2014. According to Prosecutor-General's Office, Cunha received $5 million in kickbacks to secure drill ship contracts with Petrobras. 

Translated by Amarílis Anchieta