Aécio and Vargas will continue their legal battle.
The parties failed to reach an agreement. A senator from the PSDB party is demanding R$ 500 from a congressman from the PT party, who had stated on Twitter that the Minas Gerais senator had commissioned a dossier against Serra. The tax data ended up originating the book "A Privataria Tucana" (The PSDB Privatization Scandal).
Minas 247 - Senator Aécio Neves (PSDB-MG) and federal deputy André Vargas (PT-PR) failed to reach an agreement in court. The attempt was made this Monday at the Lafayette Forum in Belo Horizonte. In October, Aécio sued Vargas, seeking R$ 500 for defamation. The PT member, who is also the PT's Secretary of Communication, accused the former governor of Minas Gerais of having ordered, in 2010, the creation of a dossier against José Serra, who was the PSDB's presidential candidate that year.
At the time, in the midst of the electoral dispute between Serra and Lula, part of the press dubbed the controversy "dossiegate." According to this line of thinking, Dilma Rousseff's electoral committee allegedly violated the tax secrecy of people linked to the PSDB party, as well as Serra's own family members. The accusations caused controversy and weakened Dilma's candidacy. Then Vargas, on Twitter, attributed the tax violations to an alleged order from Aécio Neves to harm Serra – the two were rivals for the top leadership position in the PSDB in the country. The insinuation from the PT's communications secretary was that Fernando Pimentel, a PT member and friend of the then-governor of Minas Gerais, had taken the data into Dilma's campaign.
The lawsuit filed by the PSDB senator, according to Aécio's lawyer in the press, indicated the possibility of a settlement provided Vargas made a public and formal apology, also via his Twitter account. In addition, he would have to donate the R$ 500 to a charitable institution.
Without an agreement, however, both sides will seek testimonies and evidence to defend themselves in court. The Workers' Party member's lawyer, Marcos Gusmão, told journalist Denise Motta, from... iGVargas claimed that the federal deputy had merely reproduced information published in the press. Vargas refused to issue a public apology.
One of the central figures in this dispute is the journalist Amaury Ribeiro Jr. Author of the book "A Privataria Tucana" (The Tucano Privatization), he claims that his research on Serra actually began when he was still working as a reporter for the newspaper Estado de Minas. At the time, Aécio was allegedly informed that Serra was investigating his life and, in retaliation, asked the Minas Gerais newspaper to do the same, but in the opposite direction (against the former governor of São Paulo).