Brazil’s acting President Michel Temer is facing a tough situation in light of a series of leaked audiotapes

Brazil’s tourism minister Henrique Eduardo Alves resigned on Thursday. Alves is the third minister to step down from the interim government headed by President Michel Temer.

Temer, who had been a vice president earlier, assumed the presidency just over a month ago after President Dilma Rousseff was impeached and suspended.

Temer has come under fire for appointing politicians facing corruption investigations to ministerial posts. Alves too was a close ally of Temer and he had a brief tenure dogged by allegations of corruption.

Alves is under investigation in the sprawling corruption probe at state-run oil giant Petrobras that has already ensnared some of Brazil’s richest businessmen and powerful politicians from across the political spectrum.Temer’s office didn’t disclose the reason behind Alves’ resignation, which comes a day after the release of damning plea bargain testimony by former oil company executive Sergio Machado. Alves, who also served as tourism minister under Rousseff, is one of more than 20 politicians alleged to have received bribes from Transpetro, a Petrobras subsidiary.In the plea bargain testimony, Machado alleged more than $400,000 in bribes were funneled to Alves’ campaign treasury. Alves has denied any wrongdoing in the case.

In his letter of resignation, Alves explained his resignation by saying, “I don’t want to create awkwardness or any kind of difficulty for the government.”

Machado’s allegations marked the most direct link yet between Temer and the massive corruption probe. The interim president was accused of asking the former Transpetro executive to channel $400,000 to his party’s mayoral candidate in the 2012 municipal elections in Sao Paulo as part of a kickback scheme.

Source From : indianexpress.com