A scandal involving President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's Worker's Party has brought panic to politicians. Some wonder if the president can stay above it.

BY JACK CHANG
Knight Ridder News Service

RIO DE JANEIRO - A series of bizarre twists in the bribes scandal that has engulfed the governing Workers' Party of Brazil has analysts wondering how long popular President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva can stay above the fray.

Brazilian newspapers have delighted in the most recent developments in the scandal, which began last month when a legislator accused the party of paying legislators $12,000 a month to support its proposals.

Last Friday, a party functionary was arrested at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport with almost $200,000 in Brazilian and U.S. currency stuffed in his underwear and suitcase.

PARTY RESIGNATION

On Saturday, Workers' Party President José Genoino, weakened by the succession of corruption scandals that have tainted the party's reputation, resigned. Genoino acknowledged the man caught with the money in his underwear, José Adalberto Vieira da Silva -- no relation to the president -- was an aide to his brother, who's a state deputy and a member of the Workers' Party's national committee.

The quickly developing scandal has sent panic through Brazil's political class.

With a swath of officials from at least three parties dragged into it, many are nervous that the daily revelations about the scandal, which Brazilians refer to in Portuguese as the mensalao -- or, roughly, the ''big monthly payment'' -- eventually will touch the president himself.

Brazil is no stranger to graft -- it is regularly ranked among the world's most corrupt countries by independent observers -- but Lula da Silva had promised a cleaner country.

''If concrete proof comes out that Lula was the leader of the mensalao or if it is proved that Lula himself benefited, all this will change,'' said Ricardo Rebeiro, a Sao Paulo-based political analyst.

STILL POPULAR

However, polls show the Brazilian public is sticking with the president.

In fact, Lula da Silva's approval rating rose from 57.4 percent to nearly 60 percent over the past two months, according to a widely quoted poll commissioned by the Confederacao Nacional do Transporte, a transportation industry group, and released Tuesday.

On the other hand, the Workers' Party, which Lula da Silva helped build, is ''on the ropes,'' said David Fleischer, a University of Brasilia political science professor.

In a poll published over the weekend by the newsmagazine Veja, only 36 percent of respondents agreed that the party was an honest one, while 48 percent disagreed.

For a party that came to power preaching transparency and integrity, such findings could be lethal, Fleischer said.