Influence-peddling Case Fells Brazil President's Ally

BRASMLIA, , (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Nov, 2016 ) - A prominent Brazilian government minister resigned on Friday in a scandal over alleged influence-peddling reportedly implicating President Michel Temer.

Government secretary Geddel Vieira Lima, 57, is the sixth minister to quit in Latin America's biggest country since Temer took office in May. A string of scandals has snared numerous top politicians and threatens to engulf the conservative president himself.

He has denied wrongdoing. Brazilian newspapers reported another ex-minister telling police that Temer had pressured him to intervene in a business deal involving Vieira Lima. Former culture minister Marcelo Calero said Temer and Vieira Lima asked him to approve a building project in the seaside city of Salvador de Bahia, where Vieira Lima has an apartment, Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper said.

news website G1 reported that Calero recorded the conversation with Temer. Temer denied the allegation. "The president treats all his ministers equally and never induced any of them to take any decision that might go against internal norms or his own convictions," presidential spokesman Alexandre Parola said in a statement.

"That is how he dealt with the culture minister." Temer's Defense Minister Raul Jungmann said Calero "went too far." Calero contrived the meeting and recorded it, "which what's more is a crime," Jungmann said in an interview Friday with AFP.