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Explaining Brazil’s Impeachment Crisis
Rio de Janeiro demonstration against the government, the President Dilma Rousseff, ex-president Lula and corruption. Catarina Belova / Shutterstock.com
On Sunday, the lower house of Brazil’s legislature voted to impeach President Dilma Rousseff. The measure now moves to the Senate which will decide in the next few weeks whether to vote on impeachment. So, why did this happen and what’s next?
Rousseff has been Brazil’s president since 2011, continuing the leadership of the socialist Workers’ Party of her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who took office in 2003. But whenever government strongly colludes with business, corruption scandals are sure to follow. This was true of Lula who served out his two terms, but Rousseff lacks the personal charisma to deflect the accusations.
The current president’s tenure has been riddled with scandals. In the midst of widespread poverty and weak economic growth, the Rousseff administration spent vast sums of money to prepare for the 2014 World Cup, refurbishing or building 12 stadiums. The most elaborate facility was Arena Corinthians which cost nearly half a billion dollars. Such bloated expenditures have only gotten worse as Rio de Janeiro gets ready to host the Summer Olympics.
More recently, the government-owned petroleum company Petrobras was caught in blatant corruption by granting and covering up major payouts to overbidding contractors and high-ranking politicians. Although Rousseff hasn’t yet been directly implicated, she is the company’s former chair and has routinely bungled the two-year-long scandal. Brazilian voters have repeatedly marched in the streets over the matter, this in a country long-accustomed to garden-variety political bribery.
Last month Lula was implicated in the Petrobras scandal and his house raided. Cabinet officials are protected from prosecution, so Rousseff quickly named him as her chief of staff. Her ill intentions were so obvious that Brazil’s highest court immediately blocked the appointment.
The last scandal, which is the official reason for her potential impeachment, involves claims that Rousseff illegally transferred $26 billion from state-run banks to government accounts in order to hide Brazil’s severe budget shortfalls. As Brazil enters its second year of recession, the voters and elected officials have had enough. In recent months, her approval rating has dipped to single digits and crowds regularly protest her government in the streets.
To advance impeachment proceedings, Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies (equivalent to the US House of Representatives) required a two-thirds vote. On Sunday, the Chamber approved the measure, 72 percent to 28 percent. The Speaker of the Senate needs to recommend an impeachment trial within 10 sessions, or about three to four weeks. If the Senate moves forward with a trial, Rousseff must step aside, handing the reins to Vice President Michel Temer from the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party. Following a two-thirds vote of the Senate to impeach, Temer would serve out the current term which ends in 2018.
After the vote in the lower house, politicians broke into loud cheers and sang “Eu Sou Brasileiro,” a soccer chant that has been repurposed by anti-Rousseff protestors. Meanwhile, the Workers’ Party leader in the Chamber of Deputies grumbled, “The fight is now in the courts, the street, and the Senate.”
Published in Foreign Policy, Politics
So this is what we have to look forward to after Hillary’s landslide over Trump.
The Olympics could be really fun. Or are they too far out and this will most likely be somewhat settled by then? Three to four weeks would be well ahead of an Olympic start. Are all those facilities even ready yet though?
Hey this could be Hillary Clinton.
If perhaps not a disaster it does seem the games will be problematic, the water pollution issue will not be resolved:
It also appears there will be several near empty venues:
Brazil hardly needed more trouble going into the games.
Just a procedural question here… So they’ll be hitting her with peaches? Burying her in peaches? What?
Thanks, Rudert. I think I can check off “Become an expert in Brazilian politics” now.
As Roberto noted, I’m expecting it to be a mess.