Investigation into Lula’s tourism minister revives battle against Car Wash members

The Rio de Janeiro State Prosecution Office on Tuesday announced that it had opened a preliminary investigation against Tourism Minister Daniela Carneiro, after a congressman raised malfeasance and money laundering allegations against her.

A member of the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration, Ms. Carneiro is the wife of Waguinho Carneiro, the mayor of Belford Roxo, a city of 515,000 people located just north of the state’s famous capital. All of the allegations surrounding the minister involve campaigning in the city or expenses of the mayor’s office.

In both 2018 and 2022, Ms. Carneiro successfully ran for Congress using the electoral nickname “Waguinho’s Daniela,” in a reference to her husband. She is currently on leave from her position as congresswoman in order to work as a minister.

The growing scandal around Ms. Carneiro has helped expose the political quid pro quo within the Lula administration and launch hypocrisy charges against the leftist leader right at the start of his third presidential term. 

It has also become a new battleground for the years-long feud between Lula’s Workers’ Party and former members of the now-defunct Operation Car Wash — Brazil’s biggest-ever anti-corruption taskforce. 

Lula was convicted of corruption and money laundering in 2017 as part of the Car Wash investigation. He was imprisoned the following year, which kept him from running for the presidency in 2018. His convictions were later quashed, as the Supreme Court deemed the trial judge biased against the politician following the publication of leaked messages which showed undue collusion between the judge and prosecutors. 

You scratch my back …

Minister Daniela Carneiro is a member of União Brasil, a right-wing party with the third-largest bench in the House. The party was created in 2021 from the fusion of Democratas and the Social Liberal Party (PSL) — the latter had launched Jair Bolsonaro’s successful bid for the presidency in 2018.

After losing an internal struggle for power, Mr. Bolsonaro left the PSL in late 2019, the...