Brazilian Army Waits in Wings as Government Tries to Clean Up Its Act : Politics: Though talk of a coup is dismissed, military leaders demand that the country’s corruption and economic woes be addressed.

When a leftist legislator found evidence of a scandal that could shake Brazil’s young democracy to its foundations, he went straight to the army minister, bypassing the president and even his own party.

The scandal had nothing to do with the armed forces, but Rep. Aloizio Mercadante knew an old truth about Brazil: For action in a crisis, the military is the place to go.

Gen. Zenildo Lucena encouraged Mercadante to investigate. He also told him the army wanted a political housecleaning, fast, and that Congress should purge itself.

A few days later, Benedito Onofre Bezerra Leonel, army chief of staff, said in a speech: “Beware the anger of the legions. In moments of turbulence, military leaders have always proven to be true leaders.”

Since relinquishing power in 1985 after 21 years of rule, military commanders have extolled the constitution and dismissed rumors of an impending coup. The latest comments, however, represent an unusually open attempt to influence events.

“These are warning lights of an institutional crisis,” said Geraldo Cavagnari, a retired colonel who heads the Nucleus for Strategic Studies, a military think tank.

“The armed forces are giving the civilian institutions a free hand to respond to these corruption crises. But if they ever fail, the conditions will be ripe for a takeover.”

Still other rumblings can be heard in the 325,000-member Brazilian military as it wrestles with its own identity crisis, searching for a mission in a world without a Cold War, under a government with no money.

Sharp cuts in defense spending and low pay have fed support among the middle ranks of officers for a military-backed coup of the sort carried out by Alberto Fujimori, the Peruvian president, in 1992.

Such an uprising was proposed in October after Rep. Mercadante discovered 18 boxes of documents at the home of chief of the Odebrecht construction firm, one of Brazil’s biggest. The documents contained the names of lawmakers who channeled public projects to builders for kickbacks.

President Itamar Franco rejected the idea, but military analysts say a serious risk remains if Congress does not expel corrupt members and put the country’s finances in order.

On Jan. 17, a congressional investigating committee recommended the expulsions of 17 deputies and a senator for corruption. Votes by the full Chamber of Deputies and Senate are expected in March.

Inflation of 2,500% a year and soaring unemployment have made many Brazilians openly nostalgic for military rule, when economic conditions were much better.

Nearly half the respondents in opinion polls say Brazil would be better off without Congress. Many residents of Rio speak fondly of the two-week Earth Summit in 1992 not for ecological reasons, but because many soldiers patrolling the streets provided a respite from crime.

Low pay has become a serious problem for the military and the generals are pressing Franco to do something about it.

A four-star general gets about $30,000 a year after 25 years of service. Recruits are paid barely $80 a month. Congressmen receive more than $80,000 annually, and most have high absentee rates.

Junior officers moonlight as plumbers, auto mechanics and taxi drivers. Their wives can be seen peddling chewing gum, popcorn or beverages outside movie theaters.

Although soldiers have never been paid generously, their fortunes began to decline in 1990 when Fernando Collor de Mello, the first directly elected civilian president since military rule, pledged to demilitarize Brazil.

He slashed annual military spending to $2 billion, or 0.5% of the gross national product, about one-sixth the level during army rule.

Military leaders say Brazil spends $13 per capita on the armed forces. Argentina and Chile, two other nations ruled by the military not long ago, spend spend $35 and $55, respectively.

So tight is the army’s budget that it no longer provides each soldier with two uniforms. Recruits are sent home on weekends to save money. They train with blanks and BB guns. In maneuvers, some units simulate attacks without weapons.

Paratroopers simulate air invasions by leaping from vans--jokingly called “vancopters”--instead of helicopters. The division that guards Brazil’s border with Colombia hasn’t eaten meat in six months.

Marine commanders and sailors spent only three weeks at sea last year. Pilots train with 20-year-old F-5 jets and in a year fly no more than 50 hours, the average monthly flight time for a U.S. pilot.

In October, Finance Minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso announced a further 40% cut in defense spending as part of an effort to balance the federal budget and control inflation.

During his speech in December, Gen. Leonel called Cardoso an “irresponsible, crafty man with a disrespect for our moral values.”

Shortly afterward, President Franco ordered Cardoso to spare the military. Such costly projects as the $40-million nuclear submarine program, a rocket development program and maneuvers in the Amazon jungle were left intact.