2nd Brazilian Official Quits in Graft Case, Giving New Leader a Chance to Clean House

The resignation this week of yet another minister in the government of Dilma Rousseff, the president of Brazil, may have added to the tumult of her nascent presidency, but it is also showing that her managerial push for efficiency could make it tougher for corruption to persist in her administration, analysts said.

The resignation of Alfredo Nascimento, the transportation minister, is
giving Ms. Rousseff a chance to distance herself from the government of
her mentor and predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Mr. Nascimento, who had served in the same post under Mr. da Silva,
resigned on Wednesday amid accusations of corruption involving
overbilling and solicitation of bribes. He is the second official to
fall for suspected corruption since Ms. Rousseff became president six
months ago.

Last month, Antonio Palocci, the chief of staff and most important
political adviser to the president, resigned amid accusations that he
had illegally enriched himself with consulting work while a congressman
and manager of Ms. Rousseff’s presidential campaign.

Both officials were holdovers from the previous administration. “She is
gradually reducing the number of Lulalistas that he imposed on her,”
said David Fleischer, a political science professor at Brasília
University. “She is branding her own government rather than making this a
third term for Lula.”

While the president appeared to be caught by surprise in the Palocci
case, this time it was Ms. Rousseff who was seeking answers for why the
Transportation Ministry had appeared to increase the value of several
contracts for highway and rail projects.

The scandal became public when the Brazilian magazine Veja reported that
Ms. Rousseff had questioned the leadership of the Transportation
Ministry, which controls important infrastructure projects for the World
Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016, about the apparent
overbilling.

The magazine reported that the ministry had solicited kickbacks from
engineering and construction companies, and that the majority of the
payments flowed to Mr. Nascimento’s political party. In a statement from
the ministry, he denied that he had done anything illegal, saying he
hoped to clarify matters in an appearance before the Senate next
Tuesday. Some analysts applauded Ms. Rousseff’s supervision.

“This is a sign of progress, a sign of a president that is going to have
less tolerance for this kind of behavior,” said Christopher Garman, an
analyst at Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy in New York. “This is a
government that is going to place a premium on efficiency, diminishing
the space for corruption.”

But while the episode highlighted the managerial skills of Ms. Rousseff,
a former chief of staff, it did little to assuage concerns that she
lacks one of her predecessor’s strengths: the “political skill set to
manage a coalition,” Mr. Garman said.

Ms. Rousseff, who is in a battle to rein in spending to control
inflation, needs to rally congressional support, which the scandal
surrounding Mr. Palocci already cost her, analysts said.

Before joining the cabinet, Mr. Nascimento was president of the Party of
the Republic, a midsize member of the governing coalition, which
expects a certain level of representation in her cabinet. As of late
Friday, Ms. Rousseff had not yet settled on a successor for Mr.
Nascimento.

In announcing his resignation, Mr. Nascimento returned to the Senate and reassumed his post as president of the party.

At the president’s urging, Mr. Nascimento established a commission to
investigate the charges for 30 days. Ms. Rousseff suspended, by decree,
the majority of the projects and auctions connected to the
Transportation Ministry pending the outcome of the inquiry.

The latest revelations seemed to open the floodgates to even more
questions about cozy government ties to contractors. The newspaper O
Globo revealed that the transportation minister’s son, Gustavo Morais
Pereira, had increased his wealth to $32 million from $38,500 in five
years, in part from contracts his construction company reached with
public entities, including one tied to the Transportation Ministry.

Still, the government has emphasized that Ms. Rousseff moved swiftly to
get to the bottom of the concerns about pricing in the ministry. Even
before she took over as president in January, she had been questioning
Mr. Nascimento in her role as chief of staff for unexplained additions
to contracts by the Transportation Ministry.