Brazil: Court orders probe into 2014 presidential hopeful's campaign finance

Superior Electoral Court (TSE) Justice Maria Theresa Moura issued a ruling on Wednesday (Aug. 10) asking the court's officials to investigate alleged accounting irregularities with Senator Aécio Neves's 2014 presidential election campaign. His accounts have not been audited yet because the Electoral Court handles elected candidates' cases first.

The ruling comes as a result of impropriety allegations made in April by the adversary Workers' Party (PT), which said Neves's campaign had hired services from unqualified providers. Moreover, according to the Workers' Party (PT), there were a “large amount” of bank transactions and evidence of some of these providers being shell companies.

Justice Moura has asked TSE officials in collaboration with the Federal Revenue Service and the Federal Court of Audits to investigate the financial statements provided by the companies that provided services to Aécio Neves, the list of employees hired, and which businesses were established in 2014, the year of the election.

In another statement about the process, the legal counsel for Neves's party, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), maintained that there were no improprieties with his campaign finance. “The allegations are completely unfounded and are clearly politically motivated. It will all be clarified in due course as there are no irregularities,” the PSDB statement read.

Translated by Mayra Borges