Marcos Chagas
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - The advertising executive, Duda Mendonça, told the Joint Parliamentary Investigation Commission (CPMI) that is looking into Post Office affairs that, among the PT election campaigns he was hired to orchestrate in 2002, the campaigns of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Senator Aloízio Mercadante (PT-SP) were financed with declared funds. "Senator Mercadante's campaign, because it was very inexpensive, and President Lula's, which was paid for with declared funds, since he received many contributions," Mendonça said.

According to the adman, the 2002 campaign package, which also involved José Genoíno's race for governor of São Paulo and Benedita Silva's for governor of Rio de Janeiro, cost a total of US$ 10.6 million (R$ 25 million).

Mendonça asserted that the budget of each campaign is figured separately, which, according to him, permits the identification of how much was spent on each one.

"I thought a lot about the risk of this testimony. I don't wish to punish anybody. I need to relate the facts as they occurred; I can't be flippant," Mendonça affirmed. He also disclosed that in 2003 the entrepreneur, Marcos Valério de Souza, deposited around US$ 4.26 million (R$ 10 million) in the account of a company created by Mendonça in the Bahamas, to pay off the remaining debts of these campaigns.

Translation: David Silberstein