Eduardo Consentino da Cunha (September 20, 1958) is a Brazilian politician and radio host, born in Rio de Janeiro. He has been President of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil since 2015. BBC News labeled him as the "nemesis" of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.
Personal life
Born in Rio de Janeiro, on September 20, 1958, Eduardo Cunha is the son of Elcy Teixeira da Cunha and Elza Cosentino da Cunha. He began working at fourteen, as an insurance broker. He worked as an auditor, in the firm Arthur Andersen, from 1978 to 1980. He graduated with a degree in economics from the Universidade Candido Mendes, and served as an economist at Xerox of Brazil, between 1980 and 1982.
Cunha is the father of four children and is married to journalist Cláudia Cruz.
Political views
Eduardo Cunha is a conservative evangelical Christian He seeks to have abortions banned, marijuana penalties increased, and further restrictions on homosexual activity. As an evangelist, Cunha has proposed legislation, titled The Law of Heterophobia (in response to the Law of Homophobia). The law demands a prison sentence of one to three years for anyone who forbids entry to a heterosexual in any public or private property, levies special rates at hotels or restricts the public display of affection.
****
When Anthony Garotinho was elected governor in 1999, he appointed Francisco Silva as the Secretary of Housing (with Cunha appointed as Sub-Secretary). However, Cunha was in office for just over six months, where he was forced to resign due to allegations of irregularities in no-bid contracts and favoring shell companies. Then 2001, the State Audit Court confirmed that there were various irregularities in the bids of these shell companies, including the adulteration of the clearance certificate from state taxes.
State Representative (2001-2002)
Thanks to the effort of the governor Anthony Garotinho, Cunha assumed a state representative vacancy in ALERJ, in 2001, which guaranteed him immunity against the Public Prosecutor's investigations. He was, then, elected with 101,495 votes in the follow-up campaign.
Federal Representative (2003-Present)
Eduardo Cunha elected in the 2006 elections to the office of the House, with 130,773 votes. He was re-elected again in 2010, through the PMDB with 150,616 votes.[8] Through the TSE (Brazilian Election Commission)) page, the deputy claimed to have received R $4.76 million in donations for the 2010 campaign, of which R $500,000 came from the construction company Camargo Corrêa.
In 2013, he was elected leader of the PMDB in the House. The following year, there was a criminal complaint filed in the Supreme Court, against fellow Congressman (and former governor) Anthony Garotinho (PR-RJ), for libel and defamation. Garotinho, on his blog, referred to Cunha as a "deputy lobbyist". House aides and lobbyists with access to PMDB parliamentarians report that Eduardo Cunha recorded on an agenda a list of companies - mainly linked to energy, telecommunications and construction - who benefit from parliamentary action. Later that year, he was re-elected for another term, obtaining 232,708 votes (the third most votes received in the State of Rio de Janeiro).
Second scandal (2015)
Cunha was indicted in Operação Lava Jato, the scandal involving the state-owned oil company Petrobras. The prosecutors claim that he "took as much as $40 million in bribes for himself and his allies, plundering Petrobras, the government-controlled oil company, while laundering money through an evangelical megachurch." For the crimes, "prosecutors are requesting a potential sentence of 184 years in prison if the Supreme Court puts him on trial and convicts him."
wikipedia
[/center]
= new reply since forum marked as read
