by Our Foreign Desk

BRAZIL’S Supreme Court banned corporate contributions to political campaigns and parties on Thursday.

Investigators in a corruption scandal say such financing was used by businesses to win lucrative contracts with state-run oil company Petrobras.

The court ruled 8-3 to block such campaign financing — which in the most recent presidential elections represented well over 90 per cent of the funding for leading candidates.

Brazil’s bar association brought the case in 2013 but had seen a conservative justice block a final vote until now.

“The influence of economic power is turning the electoral process into a political game of marked cards, an odious pantomime that turns the voter into a puppet, crumbling citizenship and democracy,” said Justice Rosa Weber.

Despite the ruling, the court’s action may not be the final word.

Brazil’s Congress passed a new campaign-financing measure last week that would allow corporations to make smaller donations.

The new measure limits corporations to making a total of just over $5 million (£3.2m) in contributions.

But President Dilma Rousseff is expected to veto it.

Petrobras is engulfed in a huge kickback scheme in which prosecutors allege at least $2 billion (£1.3bn) in bribes were paid out by big construction and engineering firms, which were in turn given vastly inflated contracts with the energy company.

Prosecutors and former Petrobras executives who admit to have taken bribes and have turned state’s witnesses say that part of the money made its way to the campaign coffers of political parties via what were then legal contributions.