Brazil's far right sees an opening
With less than a week until the Brazilian senate votes on the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff,
the question facing the nation is no longer whether the Workers’ party government will fall, but how far to the right the political pendulum will swing once it has fallen.
For Marco Feliciano – an ultra-conservative preacher-politician from the evangelical caucus – it cannot go far enough in reversing what he sees as the malign policies introduced since the left came to power in 2003. “For 13 years we have been anaesthetised. Now we will see the renaissance of hope in Brazil,” he told the Guardian. “I don’t just want the Workers’ party to go, I want it to disappear from history, to fall into extinction.”
Speaking in his parliamentary office in Brasília, the controversial Social Christian congressman said impeachment opens the door for a resurgent right – an alarming prospect for anyone on the left or in the centre who is worried about the polarisation of Brazilian politics. His comments reflect the
growing influence of the “bullets, beef and Bible” (BBB) caucus, which aims to strengthen the military, expand agriculture and tighten restrictions on abortion, gay marriage and secular education.
There is still a long way to go before that happens. In the short term, Vice-President Michel Temer is expected to form a centre-right administration for the 180 days of the senate’s deliberations on Rousseff’s impeachment. But longer term, conservatives like Feliciano feel they are well placed to expand their influence...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/05/brazil-far-right-dilma-rousseff-impeachment
