Brazilian ruling party admits receiving support from controversial businessman
Brazil's ruling Workers Party admitted Saturday that it received financial support from a businessmen who was under investigation for allegedly bankrolling a bribes-for-votes scandal in the congress.

The party made the confession after Brazil's leading magazine Veja reported Saturday that advertising executive Marcos Valerio Fernandes co-signed a one million US dollar loan obtained by the party from a bank in 2003 and that last year the executive made a payment of 150,000 dollars to the party.

Fernandes had told federal police last week that he was not theco-signer of the loan and that he was not involved in the corruption scandal. Officials of the Workers Party had also maintained that they had no connection with Fernandes.

But documents presented by Veja showed that Workers Party leader Jose Genoino and party treasurer Delubio Soares also co-signed and were joint debtors of the 2003 transaction.

After Veja made the revelation, Genoino, who had denied knowledge about Fernandes' role in the party's obtaining the loan, confirmed to other local media on Saturday that Fernandes was a co-signer in the Worker Party loan.

Soares, who on Friday denounced the allegations against the Workers Party as part of a right-wing plan to oust President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, also backtracked and admitted on Saturday that his previous information was "incomplete, thus inexact."

In an official statement, Soares said that in early 2003 the Workers Party got the guarantee of Fernandes to obtain the loan from the central bank.

But Genoino told the press on Saturday that the loan was absolutely legal and that he had ordered the treasurer to show the related documents to the press.

Veja insisted that the transaction was illegal, considering the fact that the major sources of income of Fernandes' publicity firm are contracts with the federal government.

The Workers Party had been in the shadow of a corruption scandal after Roberto Jefferson, then leader of the allied Brazilian Labor Party, claimed three weeks ago that the Workers' Party paid legislators 12,000 dollars monthly to obtain their support for government initiatives at the congress.