When it comes to corruption, Brazil gets headlines but Venezuela is world champion

(Photo: Carlos Becerra Bloomberg)

There is a big irony in Latin America’s latest headlines: While many of us in the media are writing articles about the corruption scandal that is rocking Brazil, as we certainly should, few are paying any attention to the vastly greater corruption taking place in Venezuela.

It’s almost as if Brazil is paying a heavy price for being a democracy with a free press, while Venezuela and other authoritarian kleptocracies — or governments run by thieves — can get away with looting their countries’ resources while keeping their scandals hidden from the public.

This irony came to mind when I read that Venezuela’s de facto dictator Nicolás Maduro had proclaimed May 21 in his weekly television show that Brazil’s “fascist government is falling” because of massive “corruption.” What a nerve!

Granted, Brazil’s outrage over the latest corruption probe against President Michel Temer is totally justified. Brazil’s fiercely independent prosecutors are doing their job, and they have found so much dirt that, at the time of this writing, it is unclear whether Temer will be able to hang on to his job.

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