Dilma Rousseff might be gone, but Brazil’s political crisis certainly isn’t
Dilma Rousseff might be gone, but Brazils political crisis certainly isnt
Paulo Pinheiro
Thursday 1 September 2016 10.24 EDT Last modified on Friday 2 September 2016 05.36 EDT
The vote that sealed Michel Temers installation into power in Brazil took place precisely one week after the end of the Rio Olympic Games and just days before the G20 summit. Major disturbances were avoided during the Games and the new president was confirmed in his post just in time to take his flight and enjoy a convenient round of handshakes and photos with world leaders in China. Everything was carefully planned to make the arbitrary removal of a democratically elected president look like business as usual.
Thats not to say the new leadership in Brazil isnt worried about whether it appears legitimate. Over the past few months, the alliance forged to oust Dilma Rousseff rejected calling the impeachment process that it was sponsoring a coup détat. Some even threatened to take legal action against those making this claim in official debates. Their narrative insisted that constitutional procedures were observed.
It is true that, unlike the sudden impeachment carried out after just a couple of days in Paraguay in 2012, or the clear use of force in Honduras in 2009, formalities were observed in the surreal trial of Rousseff. For over five months alleged government accounting irregularities were treated as one of the most serious crimes in Brazilian political history and were carefully analysed by zealous legislators, including some accused of many crimes themselves, ranging from corruption to money laundering. Suddenly the same country that was capable of silently coping with a routine of impunity in notorious cases of state violence, such as the mass murder of street children or landless workers, became fixated on the legality of administrative budgeting orders.
Irrespective of such bizarre and creative legal analysis, Rousseffs fate was decided long before the last vote in the senate, by the collapse of the heterogeneous coalition that sustained her government and that made her the easy prey of an ultra-conservative legislature rattled by uncontrolled corruption investigations.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/01/dilma-rousseff-brazil-political-crisis-conservatives-corruption
Good Reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016166456