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Carnival in Brazil looked extra orange this year as people protested 'Bolsogate' scandal
Brazil, Latin America
Posted 6 March 2019 23:33 GMT
It has nothing to do with fashion trends or a Carmen-Miranda-like pride: Brazilians who paraded on the streets of several major cities this Carnaval season wore orange costumes to send a message to President Jair Bolsonaro.
In Brazil, the Portuguese word for orange, “laranja,” is also slang for intermediaries of fraudulent financial schemes.
Two schemes involving Brazil's president or his family — the kind of old, corrupt plot he promised to fight if elected — allegedly made use of “laranjas.”
In December 2018, Rio de Janeiro state prosecutors opened a probe against Fabricio Queiroz, a retired police officer and longtime friend of the Bolsonaro family who received suspicious cash payments in 2016 and 2017 while he worked as an aide to the president's son Flavio Bolsonaro, at that time State Deputy for Rio de Janeiro (now senator for the same state). The Brazilian internet later dubbed this the ‘Bolsogate’ scandal.
More:
https://globalvoices.org/2019/03/06/carnival-in-brazil-looked-extra-orange-this-year-as-people-protested-bolsogate-scandal/