Prosecutor reiterates request to remove Léo Burguês from office.

Minas 247 - Things are getting more complicated for the president of the Belo Horizonte City Council, councilman Léo Burguês (PSDB). Re-elected to the position less than a month ago, in a controversial election in which he wasn't even considered a candidate for re-election minutes before the vote, Burguês now risks being removed from office.

This risk increased on Monday afternoon (January 21st) when prosecutor Eduardo Nepomuceno reiterated the request for action against the politician, previously made by the Public Prosecutor's Office. Now, the process only depends on electoral judge Manoel Morais. “The evidence against him is very clear. There was an exaggerated increase in advertising expenses during the election period, favoring his (Burguês') candidacy,” says Nepomuceno, who wants, in addition to the revocation of his mandate, that the councilman be ineligible for office for eight years.

Read an excerpt from the article by Iracema Amaral, from the newspaper State of Minas:

It now depends on electoral judge Manoel Morais to choose the next steps for the action requesting the removal of the president of the Belo Horizonte City Council, Léo Burguês (PSB). Prosecutor Eduardo Nepomuceno said on Monday that he refuted Burguês' defense, as ordered by the electoral judge, and reiterated the request for punishment of the parliamentarian for abuse of economic and political power. "The evidence against him is very clear. There was an exaggerated increase in advertising expenses during the election period, favoring his (Burguês') candidacy," argued the prosecutor. 

Nepomuceno reported that he sent a letter to the electoral judge last Friday, reiterating the request made in the lawsuit filed last December. In addition to the revocation of his mandate, Nepomuceno wants Burguês to be ineligible to run for office for eight years.

The prosecutor further explained that it will be up to the electoral judge to schedule a hearing to hear the testimony of Burguês and any witnesses deemed essential for the production of evidence. A second option would be to judge according to the documents and arguments presented by the parties, in this case, the prosecutor and the defense lawyers for Burguês. Finally, the magistrate also has the prerogative to grant the parties access to the case file for analysis and presentation of final arguments.

According to the electoral prosecutor, Burguês argued in his defense that a similar lawsuit had already been filed in court and ended up being dismissed. Nepomuceno said that the parliamentarian's lawyers' argument is unsustainable. "Our discussion regarding advertising expenses is much broader," the prosecutor countered.

According to him, the other dismissed lawsuit mentioned an increase in expenses in 2012 of approximately R$ 65, compared to the previous three-year period. Nepomuceno recalls that the arguments used in the current lawsuit point to conduct by the president of the Belo Horizonte City Council that violated electoral law. According to Nepomuceno, by ordering expenses from the City Council for official advertising, including his own, in the year he was also running for reelection as a city councilor, Burguês granted himself privileges.

Also authored by prosecutor Eduardo Nepomuceno, two more lawsuits against Burguês are pending in the ordinary courts, accusing him of administrative misconduct, with requests for the return of expenses considered illegal, payment of a fine (to be determined by the court), and suspension of Burguês' political rights.

According to Nepomuceno, in the investigation into the Chamber's advertising expenses, since councilman Léo Burguês assumed the presidency of the Legislative branch two years ago, the projected advertising spending exceeded by more than double the amount stipulated in the contract with the advertising agencies. Instead of spending R$ 3 million in the first year of Burguês's term as president of the Chamber, the expenditure on advertising funds reached R$ 7,5 million. According to Nepomuceno, the extra spending was made through three addenda to the contract that violated the law.

Furthermore, according to the prosecutor, the funds were directed to media outlets "protected" by the councilman, which, in exchange, began to give the councilman more airtime in their respective companies' news coverage. "These expenses are the subject of the first lawsuit currently underway in the ordinary courts," explained Nepomuceno.