Brazil’s Breakdown Doesn’t End With The Ouster Of Its President
By Benny Avni
The New York Post
May 13, 2016
Dilma Rousseff has no one to blame for the messy Brazil she leaves behind but herself, and the outdated Latin American political dogma she clings to.
Rousseff was temporarily removed from power by the Senate just as Brazil is struggling to show its prettiest face to the world in the summer Olympics. She vowed to fight on, but Brazilians now blame her for everything, from widespread corruption to the spreading Zika virus.
With public approval down to 10 percent, Rousseff told her dwindling but loud fans Thursday that the impeachment — in a daylong 55-22 Senate vote — was no less than a “coup.” Claiming the vote was undemocratic, she harked back to her heroic revolutionary youth, when she was imprisoned and tortured by the country’s military dictators.
Rousseff even played the gender card, reminding the crowds that she’s Brazil’s first woman president.
As for the accusations underlying the impeachment, she said, “If it wasn’t a crime before, it isn’t a crime now.” In fact, she’s not quite accused of a crime. At least not yet. (The Senate vote, and the ensuing “trial” to permanently remove her from office, isn’t a criminal proceeding but a political one.)
Instead, she’s being driven out of office because of governance malpractice. Specifically, Rousseff is accused of cooking the books to bolster her 2014 reelection campaign and taking huge loans from banks she controlled to cover up for the government’s growing budget deficits.
When Rousseff was handpicked by “Lula” da Silva in 2010 to succeed him as president, the economy was booming. Investors rushed to Brazil. It was the B in the group of nations known as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), which were supposed to be the next big economic top dogs.
The country looked promising under a socialist government inspired by Cuba’s Castro brothers and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
The boom was ignited by Chinese and other countries’ lust for Brazilian commodities. Lula, the charismatic, politically gifted Workers Party’s leader, used much of the cash to lift the masses from poverty. His government subsidized anything from housing to cars and gasoline. And he was savvy enough not to fully extinguish market forces, the “invisible hand” nudging the economy along.
By the time Rousseff replaced Lula, however, world demand for commodities started to dwindle. Naturally, so did the government’s coffers.
Yet the new, stiffly ideological president continued Lula’s popular subsidy programs long after she could no longer afford them. When she finally started withdrawing support for artificially low gasoline prices, the public turned against her.
Now Brazil’s suffering its deepest financial crisis since the 1930s. Those foreign investors are all gone. Government bonds are down to junk level. With low growth, rising inflation and unemployment reaching 11 percent, even the most able politician would run into hardships. And Rousseff, stern and woody, lacks Lula’s charisma.
And here’s another almost-inevitable byproduct of too much government control of the economy: corruption in the upper echelons of power.
Lula, Brazil’s former savior and Rousseff’s idol, is now ensnared in a deepening investigation into alleged bribery at Petrobas, the country’s oil company. The ever-widening investigation into one of Brazil’s largest cash cows has plagued Rousseff’s entire second term, adding to the public’s increasing anger at political elites.
In the lead-up to her impeachment, Rousseff said it was unfair to kick her out of office on the eve of the Olympics, which she’s worked so hard to promote. But three months before opening day, ticket sales to the games are lagging. The locals can’t afford them, and fans from outside Brazil fear the mosquito-borne Zika.
Rousseff will continue to fight, she says, even as her vice president, Michel Temer, temporarily takes office.
Brazil will hopefully pull through somehow. Latin America, after all, isn’t as messy as the Mideast. (Temer became president far away from his country of birth, Lebanon, where political standoff and the threat of violence has left the president’s palace empty for two years.)
But it’s messy enough that pulling Brazil out of its political nosedive will take a lot more than booting Dilma Rousseff from office.
The New York Post
May 13, 2016
Dilma Rousseff has no one to blame for the messy Brazil she leaves behind but herself, and the outdated Latin American political dogma she clings to.
Rousseff was temporarily removed from power by the Senate just as Brazil is struggling to show its prettiest face to the world in the summer Olympics. She vowed to fight on, but Brazilians now blame her for everything, from widespread corruption to the spreading Zika virus.
With public approval down to 10 percent, Rousseff told her dwindling but loud fans Thursday that the impeachment — in a daylong 55-22 Senate vote — was no less than a “coup.” Claiming the vote was undemocratic, she harked back to her heroic revolutionary youth, when she was imprisoned and tortured by the country’s military dictators.
Rousseff even played the gender card, reminding the crowds that she’s Brazil’s first woman president.
As for the accusations underlying the impeachment, she said, “If it wasn’t a crime before, it isn’t a crime now.” In fact, she’s not quite accused of a crime. At least not yet. (The Senate vote, and the ensuing “trial” to permanently remove her from office, isn’t a criminal proceeding but a political one.)
Instead, she’s being driven out of office because of governance malpractice. Specifically, Rousseff is accused of cooking the books to bolster her 2014 reelection campaign and taking huge loans from banks she controlled to cover up for the government’s growing budget deficits.
When Rousseff was handpicked by “Lula” da Silva in 2010 to succeed him as president, the economy was booming. Investors rushed to Brazil. It was the B in the group of nations known as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), which were supposed to be the next big economic top dogs.
The country looked promising under a socialist government inspired by Cuba’s Castro brothers and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
The boom was ignited by Chinese and other countries’ lust for Brazilian commodities. Lula, the charismatic, politically gifted Workers Party’s leader, used much of the cash to lift the masses from poverty. His government subsidized anything from housing to cars and gasoline. And he was savvy enough not to fully extinguish market forces, the “invisible hand” nudging the economy along.
By the time Rousseff replaced Lula, however, world demand for commodities started to dwindle. Naturally, so did the government’s coffers.
Yet the new, stiffly ideological president continued Lula’s popular subsidy programs long after she could no longer afford them. When she finally started withdrawing support for artificially low gasoline prices, the public turned against her.
Now Brazil’s suffering its deepest financial crisis since the 1930s. Those foreign investors are all gone. Government bonds are down to junk level. With low growth, rising inflation and unemployment reaching 11 percent, even the most able politician would run into hardships. And Rousseff, stern and woody, lacks Lula’s charisma.
And here’s another almost-inevitable byproduct of too much government control of the economy: corruption in the upper echelons of power.
Lula, Brazil’s former savior and Rousseff’s idol, is now ensnared in a deepening investigation into alleged bribery at Petrobas, the country’s oil company. The ever-widening investigation into one of Brazil’s largest cash cows has plagued Rousseff’s entire second term, adding to the public’s increasing anger at political elites.
In the lead-up to her impeachment, Rousseff said it was unfair to kick her out of office on the eve of the Olympics, which she’s worked so hard to promote. But three months before opening day, ticket sales to the games are lagging. The locals can’t afford them, and fans from outside Brazil fear the mosquito-borne Zika.
Rousseff will continue to fight, she says, even as her vice president, Michel Temer, temporarily takes office.
Brazil will hopefully pull through somehow. Latin America, after all, isn’t as messy as the Mideast. (Temer became president far away from his country of birth, Lebanon, where political standoff and the threat of violence has left the president’s palace empty for two years.)
But it’s messy enough that pulling Brazil out of its political nosedive will take a lot more than booting Dilma Rousseff from office.
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