Brazil 2016 – 18

Written by Diana Thebaud Nicholson // December 28, 2018 // Americas, Brazil // Comments Off on Brazil 2016 – 18

These 5 Facts Explain Brazil’s Crippling Scandals
(TIME) 24 July 2015
See also Brazil 2013-2015
Rio 2016 Olympics
Look at this NPR

28 December
‘The museum is alive’ – Rio team toils to rescue items from devastating fire
(The Guardian) A key moment was the rediscovery of “Luzia” – the 11,500-year old skull of “the first Brazilian woman” believed lost in the fire, then rescued in fragments from the remains of a metal cupboard. “It was a symbolic moment,” said historian Regina Dantas, 56.
Six days a week, the 60-strong recovery team picks through the ruins; their findings are taken to a screening area, examined by specialists and stored in containers.
Archaeologist Claudia Rodrigues-Carvalho, the team’s coordinator – and the museum’s former director – said that by February the building should be secure enough for proper excavation work to begin.
“I never never wanted to be here, doing this, but as it happened I can’t imagine being anywhere else,” she said.
For decades, museum directors had pleaded for more money to protect the wooden-floored museum, she said. In June, as the museum celebrated its 200th birthday, Brazil’s government development bank finally agreed to $5.6m for restoration work. But none of it had arrived when the fire broke out.
The museum’s anthropology, ethnography, palaeontology, geology, entomology, arachnology and malacology collections were all housed in the palace – and most of them were destroyed, she said. The botany, invertebrate and vertebrate collections were kept in separate annexes and survived. (See Brazil museum fire: ‘incalculable’ loss as 200-year-old Rio institution gutted)

18 December
Brazil’s biggest tribal reserve faces uncertain future under Bolsonaro
Far-right government vows to legalise mining and commercial farming on indigenous Yanomami land
Bolsonaro takes office on 1 January with promises to legalise mining and commercial farming on indigenous reserves and end the “fines party” of environment agencies. He has pledged to help the illegal artisanal gold miners called garimpeiros whose destructive work has been described by campaigners as an epidemic in the Amazon. His incoming environment minister, Ricardo Salles, whose appointment was recommended by agribusiness groups, has said he wants the “defence of the environment with the support of economic development”.

14-15 November
Brazil’s new foreign minister believes climate change is a Marxist plot
Ernesto Araújo has called climate science ‘dogma’ and bemoaned the ‘criminalisation’ of red meat, oil and heterosexual sex|
(The Guardian) His appointment, confirmed by Bolsonaro on Wednesday, is likely to send a chill through the global climate movement.
Brazil was where the international community first came together in 1992 to discuss reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Its diplomats have played a crucial role in bridging the gap between rich and poor nations, particularly during the forging of the Paris agreement in 2015.
But when the new government takes power in January, the foreign ministry that leads that work will be headed by a man who claims climate science is merely “dogma”.
In his blog, Araújo states his goal is to “help Brazil and the world liberate themselves from globalist ideology”, which he sees as anti-Christian.
The 51-year-old diplomat – who has never served as an overseas ambassador – claims unnamed leftist politicians have hijacked environmentalism to serve as a tool for global domination.
Cuba to pull doctors out of Brazil after President-elect Bolsonaro comments
Bolsonaro demands contract changes and questions training
11,420 Cuban doctors work in poor and remote parts of Brazil
Cuba has announced it will withdraw thousands of its doctors from Brazil after the South American nation’s president-elect Jair Bolsonaro questioned their training and demanded changes to their contracts.
The far-right Bolsonaro, who takes office on 1 January, said in an interview this month that the 11,420 Cuban doctors working in poor and remote parts of Brazil could only stay if they received 100% of their pay and their families could join them.
Under the terms of the agreement with Cuba, brokered via the Pan-American Health Organization, Havana receives the bulk of the doctors’ wages.
Bolsonaro threatened to break off diplomatic relations with Havana over the program, saying it trampled on the rights of the doctors by handing the Cuban government 75% of their pay and denying mothers the right to have their children with them.

6 November
Trump’s Trade War Was Bad Enough for Brazil’s Amazon. Then Came Bolsonaro
(World Politics Review) From 2004 to 2012, the rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped more than 80 percent, even as Brazil’s agricultural production continued to grow. But that progress in protecting a fragile and essential ecosystem reversed in recent years, before the outlook got even worse.
First, U.S. President Donald Trump launched a trade war with China, shifting more Chinese demand for soybean products from the United States to Brazil, potentially leading to more deforestation to meet the demands of Brazilian agriculture. Then, last month Brazilians elected the far-right Jair Bolsonaro as president, a major supporter of agribusiness who has vowed to put economic growth over environmental protection. That combination could mean a surge in deforestation in the Amazon with serious implications not just for the Brazilians most directly affected, but for the wider world.
The Amazon basin is home to the world’s largest rainforest. Its trees release carbon dioxide when cut down or burned, and sequester it when planted or left in place. The pace of deforestation, especially in tropical areas like Brazil, has become a major contributor to climate change, as large in the aggregate as the European Union’s greenhouse gas emissions. Reversing those trends could reduce global emissions by even more—as much as 30 percent according to some estimates. Rainforests like the Amazon’s are also important for global biodiversity and local resilience. In addition to the ecological benefits it provides, biodiversity creates economic opportunities through eco-tourism and sources of new pharmaceutical products. Forests also contribute to localized amenities, such as clean water and protection from climate-related disasters that include flooding and mudslides, as well as drought. Reducing tropical deforestation could stem the temperature rise due to greenhouse gas emissions faster and more cost-effectively than other options, according to researchers at the Center for Global Development.
Until recently, Brazil was one of the world’s success stories in the fight against deforestation.

Brazil’s New President Openly Threatens Genocide of Indigenous Amazonians
(returntonow.net)Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, campaigned on a plan to sell off major portions of the Amazon rainforest to agribusiness, mining. and hydro-power.
“Minorities have to adapt to the majority, or simply disappear,” he said on the campaign trail, adding that under his administration, “not one square centimeter” of Brazil will be reserved for the country’s indigenous peoples.
Thirteen percent of the land in Brazil is protected indigenous territory in the Amazon rainforest, where most of the world’s last uncontacted tribes take refuge. Bolsonaro has said he wants to put all of that land on the auction block.
Not only is this a grave attack on the human rights of Brazil’s indigenous people, but also on their ability to continue acting as the best defenders of the world’s forests,” writes Becca Warner, an environmentalism journalist for The Ecologist.
“We need all the forest we can get, to capture carbon from the atmosphere and keep it locked away,” she says. “In fact, scientists agree that halting deforestation is just as urgent as reducing emissions.”

4 November
Brazil’s Bolsonaro gives China electric shock
(Reuters Breakingviews) – Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro threatens to short-circuit China’s energy plans. Beijing-backed energy companies hope to invest tens of billions of dollars in Brazilian power, but the president-elect has warned of Chinese intentions. Firms like State Grid would bring a lot of cash and expertise – and Brazil could use both. But populist suspicion might overrule commercial logic.
China is best known as a buyer of Brazilian commodities, but it is also an active direct investor. The country has plowed $124 billion into the Latin American nation since 2003, according to Reuters. A large chunk of that has focused on energy, with state-owned companies such as State Grid and China Three Gorges investing billions of dollars in dams and electricity transmission.

3 November
From Astronaut to Car Wash Judge, Bolsonaro Forms Brazil Cabinet
Bolsonaro is at least reconsidering his idea to create a third super ministry of agriculture and environment after the plan drew rebuke from activists, agriculture leaders and even supermodel Gisele Bundchen.
(Bloomberg) A smooth handoff will be crucial for Bolsonaro to quickly tackle his two biggest challenges — pulling the country out of its economic doldrums and cracking down on rampant crime and corruption.
Bolsonaro hopes to win both battles with two “super ministers” — Paulo Guedes, a liberal economist and financier, and Sergio Moro, the iconic Car Wash judge who helped put numerous big-name entrepreneurs and politicians behind bars, including former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro hopes to win both battles with two “super ministers” — Paulo Guedes, a liberal economist and financier, and Sergio Moro, the iconic Car Wash judge who helped put numerous big-name entrepreneurs and politicians behind bars, including former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Having big names in the cabinet is at once Bolsonaro’s strength and his Achilles’ heel.
“Now we have two ministers who can’t be fired, and by definition that’s not good,” investment bank XP’s political analysts wrote in a note to clients. “In the future the president-elect may have to deal with a political figure bigger than himself in his own government.”
Signs of clashes among his top cabinet members became apparent when Guedes defended efforts to approve an initial pension reform this year, just hours after Chief of Staff Onyx Lorenzoni, also designated as liaison with Congress, said it was better to wait for a definitive reform.
“I expected this conflict because of the shallowness of the discussion of economic issues during the campaign,” said Mauricio Santoro, professor of international relations at Rio de Janeiro’s Federal University. “This will generate some friction with Bolsonaro’s electorate, which is not economically liberal.”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – OCTOBER 28: Jair Bolsonaro, far-right lawmaker and presidential candidate of the Social Liberal Party (PSL), casts his vote on October 28, 2018 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Ricardo Moraes-Pool/Getty Images)

1 November
Bolsonaro Can’t Destroy Brazilian Democracy
Brazil’s new president is a throwback to its authoritarian past—but the country is more resilient than it used to be.
By Omar G. Encarnación
(Foreign Policy) Jair Bolsonaro’s decisive victory in the second round of Brazil’s presidential elections showed a clear right-wing turn in the politics of Latin America. Three of the region’s five largest economies—Argentina, Brazil, and Chile—are now in the hands of right-wing governments. But Bolsonaro is a figure significantly more extreme than Mauricio Macri of Argentina and Sebastián Piñera of Chile, both successful businessmen who came to power preaching the virtues of small government and open markets. Bolsonaro, by contrast, is an outright reactionary and the best manifestation yet of the “Trumpification” of the Latin American right.
Displaying a Trumpian hostility toward the environment, Bolsonaro has threatened to take Brazil out of the Paris climate accord and open the Amazon to development. Last but not least is Bolsonaro’s fondness for the military and penchant for authoritarianism, which is rooted in the Latin American tradition of the caudillo, or strongman. As a former parachutist in Brazil’s last military dictatorship, in place from 1964 to 1985, Bolsonaro has heaped praise on the leaders of the dictatorship. This praise has come despite a damming 2014 truth commission report that found that the military regime was responsible for a host of human rights abuses, including having killed more than 400 individuals—many of whom were disappeared as the regime sought to cover its tracks—and having tortured many more, including future President Dilma Rousseff.
Understandably, much of the reporting about Bolsonaro’s rise in the U.S. media is predicting a dramatic upheaval in Brazilian politics with apocalyptic overtones.
Yet, for all the very serious threats that Bolsonaro poses to Brazil and the international community as a whole, it will take a lot to radically upend Brazilian politics—more so than is commonly recognized. Indeed, a compelling case can be made that Brazilian democracy, despite its youth, is more than capable of coping with the stress on the democratic system placed by the Bolsonaro presidency. Much of this is the legacy of recent left-wing administrations. They have facilitated Bolsonaro’s rise, but they also have prepared the country for him.
Despite having become a democracy only in 1985, Brazil has had a rich political experience since then. It includes having elected right-wing governments in the past, most notably in 1990, when Fernando Collor de Mello burst into office with an economic agenda that, much like Bolsonaro’s, emphasized privatizations and comprehensive state reform. Collor’s presidency imploded spectacularly; he resigned in 1992 under the threat of impeachment by Congress on corruption charges. But, more importantly, Collor’s ambitious, liberalizing economic program went nowhere. If anything, an economic agenda anchored on privatization and state reform could prove harder to implement today in Brazil than in the early 1990s.

30 October
Brazil: Bolsonaro plans threaten Amazon, say experts
(BBC) Brazil’s far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro will merge the ministries of agriculture and the environment, an aide says, in a move which critics say could endanger the Amazon rainforest.
What else has been been decided?
Following behind-closed-door talks on Tuesday, Mr Bolsonaro’s top economic adviser Paulo Guedes confirmed that an economic super-ministry would be formed combining finance, planning, industry and trade.
It will be headed by Mr Guedes.

Jair Bolsonaro denies he is a fascist and paints himself as a Brazilian Churchill
President-elect: ‘It’s the leftwing people … who are fascists’
Bolsonaro refuses to apologise for pro-dictatorship comments
(The Guardian) Bolsonaro told TV Band, one of Brazil’s major channels, it was his left-wing detractors who were fascists, not him.
Brazil’s far-right president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, has reaffirmed his defense of his country’s brutal 21-year dictatorship and rejected claims that he is a fascist, instead painting himself as a Churchillian patriot determined to lead his crisis-stricken country “out of this quagmire”.
The veteran politician, who paints himself as a political outsider, also refused to say he regretted saying the military regime that ruled Brazil from 1964 until 1985 should have killed 30,000 people. In a now infamous 1999 television interview Bolsonaro also said: “You’ll never change anything in this country through voting. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Bolsonaro, who has expressed admiration for dictators including Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, claimed many Brazilians now believed Brazil’s military regime “wasn’t a dictatorship as the left has always preached”.
He said the media had unjustly described Cuba’s former leader, Fidel Castro, as a president while calling João Figueiredo, who ruled Brazil during the final years of its dictatorship, a dictator.

29 October
Brazil shows us, again, that deep misogyny is no bar to running a country
(Quartz) Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing candidate who once said in a newspaper interview that a fellow lawmaker was “too ugly” to rape, has won Brazil’s second-round presidential election.
The run-off election on Sunday (Oct. 28) took place after Bolsonaro failed to win an outright majority in polls three weeks ago, leading to the face-off against his closest rival, Fernando Haddad, of the left-wing Workers’ Party.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain of the conservative Social Liberal Party, has expressed admiration for Brazil’s past military dictatorship, and says the country needs tough leadership to deal with its problems. It’s a message that seems to have resonated with voters fed up with ever-expanding corruption scandals and violent crime (paywall)—underscored by the nearly fatal stabbing of Bolsonaro during campaigning.
On Sunday, he defeated Haddad by a margin of more than 10 percentage points, winning 55% of the vote. After his victory, Bolsonaro told supporters (link in Portuguese): “The Brazilian people understood the truth in this election.” He’ll take office in January.
Haddad responded to the defeat with this message (link in Portuguese) to supporters: “Don’t be afraid. We will be here, we will stand together.”
Christian Fascism Comes To Brazil: New President Bolsonaro Promises Christian Theocracy

9 October
Brazil’s far-right frontrunner Bolsonaro says he will rule with ‘authority not authoritarianism’
After his first round victory, Jair Bolsonaro tries to allay fears that Brazil could lurch back towards dictatorship under his command
(The Guardian) Bolsonaro – who has pledged to scrap Brazil’s environment ministry, open indigenous reserves to mining and ditch the Paris climate accord – also prevailed in the Amazon states of Roraima, Acre and Rondônia, with more than 62%, and in Mato Grosso, with 60%.
During a visit to the Amazon region in April, Bolsonaro praised Donald Trump’s approval of the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines (“No messing around with the environment or the indigenous. Problem sorted!”) and told the Guardian he would take similar steps and target environmental groups operating in Brazil.
“This cowardly business of international NGOs like WWF and so many others from England sticking their noses into Brazil is going to end! This tomfoolery stops right here!” Bolsonaro said. “We’re in Brazil here: Great Brazil just like the Great America of our dear Trump.”

7 October
Brazil election: Jair Bolsonaro makes Trumpian pledge as poll shows big lead
Rightwinger 15 points ahead as he rallies supporters with ‘make Brazil great again’ slogan
(The Guardian) The far-right frontrunner to become the next president of Latin America’s largest democracy has vowed to make Brazil great again, as election-eve polls gave him a commanding lead in what many view as the most important election in its history.
“Let’s make Brazil Great! Let’s be proud of our homeland once again!” Jair Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old former paratrooper notorious for his hostility to black and gay people, the environment and the left, proclaimed in a Trumpian live broadcast to his seven million Facebook followers on Saturday night.
“Together we are going to change Brazil!”

5 October
Brazilian Democracy on the Brink
By Robert Muggah, co-founder and research director of Instituto Igarapé and a co-founder and principal of the SecDev Group.
(Project Syndicate) After years of corruption scandals, economic malaise, and deepening political polarization, Brazilians have lost faith in the promise of democracy, and could soon elect a dangerous authoritarian to the presidency. Before going to the polls on October 7, Brazilians should understand exactly what a vote for Jair Bolsonaro would mean for the future of their country.
Not since the restoration of democracy in 1985 has a Brazilian election been so contentious and unpredictable. At stake is the presidency, but also positions for 27 state governors, 54 senators and nearly 1,600 elected officials. Although 69% of Brazilians have faith in democracy, more than half admit they would “go along” with a non-democratic government so long as it “solved problems.” Despite efforts by a new generation of young leaders working to restore faith in democracy, Brazilians are ranked as the least trusting and most pessimistic people in Latin America today. And now, the rise of digital propaganda and fake news is making a bad situation much worse.
Among the crop of presidential candidates in this cycle, a few thrive on division, while most – including Marina Silva, the only woman in the race – advocate a middle ground. Unfortunately, the populists are ascendant, and the pragmatists have struggled to break through.

1 October
The Decline and Fall of Brazil’s Political Establishment
Whether or Not Bolsonaro Wins the Presidency, a Transformation Is Underway
(Foreign Affairs) This October, Brazilians will go to the polls to elect a new president, and the country could become the next democracy to fall in the populist wave that has been sweeping the globe. Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right nationalist member of Congress known for making racist and chauvinistic comments, is currently leading in many polls and may very well win a second-round runoff.
At first glance, it may seem strange that a country once hailed as one of the most inclusive democracies in the developing world could elect a president who has openly attacked the rights of gay people, women, and Afro-Brazilians and who has been an apologist for military dictatorship and torture. Yet Bolsonaro’s rise makes sense when one considers the backdrop of Brazil’s culture of political corruption.

7 September
Brazil presidential election thrown into chaos after front-runner stabbed
(Reuters) – Brazil’s presidential race was thrown into chaos on Friday with the far-right front-runner Jair Bolsonaro in serious but stable condition in an intensive care unit after being stabbed at a rally. … The attack further clouds Brazil’s most unpredictable election in three decades. …
Running as the law-and-order candidate, Bolsonaro has positioned himself as the anti-politician, though he has spent nearly three decades in Congress.
He has long espoused taking a radical stance on public security in Brazil, which has more homicides than any other country, according to U.N. statistics, and has openly praised Brazil’s military dictatorship, which he has said should have killed more people.
Bolsonaro has stirred controversy with comments denigrating women, gay, black and indigenous people.

3-4 September
What Was Lost in Brazil’s Devastating Museum Fire
Two hundred years of work—and millions of priceless specimens—have been destroyed in a preventable tragedy.
(The Atlantic) the museum’s ruins could be seen as a testament to neglect. The burned building was the largest natural-history museum in Latin America, but it had never been completely renovated in its 200-year history. It had long suffered from obvious infrastructure problems including leaks, termite infestations, and—crucially—no working sprinkler system. Recognizing these problems in the 1990s, museum staff began planning to move the collection into a different site, but without stable funding, those plans proceeded in fits and starts.
Brazil National Museum blaze in Rio blamed on austerity
(The Guardian) While the cause of the blaze is still under investigation, government cuts and inadequate fire protection systems have been cited as key factors. Rio’s fire chief, Roberto Robaday, said the two hydrants nearest the museum were dry, delaying efforts to douse the flames.
In recent years, the government has spent billions on the Olympics and major construction projects that generated kickbacks for politicians, but slashed spending on culture and education in the name of austerity.

“It was a foretold tragedy”–Fire destroys Brazil’s National Museum and its prized science collections
(Science) A fire at the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro has destroyed one of country’s most important scientific collections. No one was injured in the fire, which broke out after the museum had closed on Sunday evening. But the blaze ravaged the museum’s massive archives and collections, numbering around 20 million items by some estimates. The museum had no sprinkler system, and only limited water was available from fire hydrants when fire fighters arrived.
In recent years budget woes had plagued the museum, and scientists had warned as early as 2004 of dangerous wiring and a lack of fire protection.
“It’s an irreparable loss, not only for Brazilian science but for the world. The building can be reconstructed, restored and everything else, but the collections can never be replaced. Two centuries of science and culture are lost forever”, said Sergio Alex Azevedo, a paleozoologist and former director at the museum.
The full extent of the damage isn’t yet clear. Some vertebrate specimens and some of the botany collection were housed in a separate building that was not affected by the fire. But millions of specimens, including the museum’s globally important invertebrate collection, were destroyed. Aerial images showed collapsed roofs, with piles of ashes and rubble inside the exterior walls that were left standing. The interior of the building was mostly wood, and safety upgrades were difficult to make because of federal rules governing historically protected sites. (The building was built in 1808 as the official residence of the Portuguese royal family in Brazil.)
The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) managed the museum with funds from the federal government, and many scientists blamed chronic underfunding for the disaster. “We all knew something like this was going to happen sooner or later; it was just a matter of time,” said anthropologist Walter Neves, a retired professor at the University of Sao Paulo, who described the Luzia skull. “The museum was completely abandoned, left to rot by the disdain and carelessness of public authorities. I am in complete grief,” he said. (The Luzia skull was collected in the 1970s, but remained forgotten at the museum until Neves found it 20 years later. It was kept in a metal case, so researchers say there’s a possibility it may have survived the fire.)

Gwynne Dyer: Bye-bye Lula
On Sunday, Brazil’s top electoral court ruled that “Lula”, former president Luiz Inácio da Silva, cannot run in the presidential election this October.
He served two terms as president (2003-2011), he dutifully waited out the following two terms, and his Workers’ Party (PT) has nominated him for the presidency again. Opinion polls give him 39 per cent support, more than twice as much as any other candidate. However, Lula is in jail in the southern city of Curitiba, serving a twelve-year sentence for corruption, and he is not getting out any time soon.
The bad news is that he is probably guilty, perhaps not of the specific offence he has already been convicted for, but of four other charges of money laundering, influence peddling and obstruction of justice that are still pending. ..there is plenty of evidence that Lula engaged in other kinds of dodgy fund-raising, not to benefit himself, but to buy the cooperation of other parties in Brazil’s congress, where there was a plethora of small parties and his PT never had a majority. This was illegal, but it was perfectly normal political practice when he became president in 2003.
That’s how Lula pushed through radical measures like the ‘bolsa familial’, a regular payment to poor Brazilians (provided that their children had an 85 percent attendance record at school and had received all their vaccinations) that lifted 35 million people out of poverty. Brazil’s economy boomed, and when he left office in 2011 with an 83% approval rating, Brazilians were both richer and more equal than ever before.

4 April
Brazil’s top court ruled that former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva can be sent to prison while he continues to appeal his corruption conviction.
It’s an explosive decision that appears to quash Mr. da Silva’s bid to return to power. The 72-year-old is a towering and divisive figure in his country’s politics — with a considerable lead in the polls for October’s presidential election. Mr. da Silva has called his prosecution a ploy to keep him off the ballot.

24 January
Upending Brazil’s Presidential Race, Court Upholds Ex-Leader’s Conviction
A Brazilian appeals court on Wednesday upheld a corruption conviction against former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, jeopardizing his quest to win a third term in office and raising the prospect that Mr. da Silva, Brazil’s most popular politician, could be behind bars when ballots are cast in October.
The ruling was a major victory for prosecutors in what may be the highest-stakes case in the yearslong showdown between Brazil’s judiciary and the political elite. Prosecutors have portrayed Mr. da Silva, who has also been charged in six other corruption cases, as a linchpin of Brazil’s endemically corrupt political system.

2017

Accused of corruption, popularity near zero – why is Temer still Brazil’s president?
Michel Temer may escape impeachment, but the ongoing political crisis undermines democracy and opens the door to authoritarian hardliners
(The Guardian) If Brazil’s recent decline could be plotted in the falling popularity of its presidents, Michel Temer represents the bottom of the curve.In 2010, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ended his second term with an 80% approval rating. In March 2016 – four months before she was impeached – his protege and successor Dilma Rousseff’s administration had a 10% rating.
Last month, the government of Temer, Rousseff’s former vice-president, plunged to 3% in one poll. Among under 24-year-olds, Temer’s approval hit zero.
Temer has been charged with corruption, racketeering and obstruction of justice. Yet there have been none of the huge, anti-corruption street protests that helped drive Rousseff’s impeachment on charges of breaking budget rules. (17 October 2017)

27 June
(The Economist) Scandal in Brazil: Temer tantrum Michel Temer was charged with bribe-taking this week. It is the first such charge against a sitting Brazilian president. The administration of Mr Temer, who protests his innocence, was already the most unpopular on record. But for the case against him to proceed, the charges must be approved by two-thirds of lower-house deputies. The president is still backed by enough congressmen to make that improbable, writes our Brazil correspondent
The Corruption Charges Against Brazil’s President
Michel Temer is accused of accepting bribes, but the country’s Congress will decide if he ultimately faces trial.
(The Atlantic) The charges come a month after the release of an audio recording of a conversation between Temer and Joesley Batista, the chairman of JBS, Brazil’s largest meatpacker, in which Temer can apparently be heard approving bribes. Batista, who presented the recording to prosecutors as part of a plea deal, accused Temer of negotiating millions of dollars in illegal campaign donations for his ruling party, Brazilian Democratic Movement. Though Temer is the latest Brazilian leader to face corruption allegations, he is hardly the first. The country’s massive corruption scandal has implicated virtually every member of its political class, including dozens of lawmakers and a third of Temer’s cabinet. More than 90 people have been convicted.As I previously reported, if Temer is forced to step down, then House Speaker Rodrigo Maia, a Temer ally who is also implicated in the country’s scandal, would become president in the interim.

8 June
Brazil’s Argentina Moment
By Filipe Campante and Dani Rodrik
(Project Syndicate) Brazil’s economy has been in free fall, a casualty of years of economic mismanagement and the vast corruption scandal that has engulfed the country’s political and business establishment – and which now threatens to bring down the second president in as many years. It may seem hard to focus on policy developments amid the political and economic turmoil, but the fact remains that Brazil must overcome fundamental challenges if it is to lay the groundwork for sustainable growth. Few loom as large as the country’s fiscal woes.

29 May
The Genocide of Brazil’s Indians
Unless there is a public outcry in defense of Brazil’s indigenous people, they will continue to die — cut off from their lands, officially silenced, murdered, ravaged by malnutrition and disease — and the genocide will be complete.
(NYT Op-ed) Every week seems to bring reports of a new atrocity committed against indigenous people in some remote part of the country. But nothing seems to shock our society anymore. Not even when, a few weeks ago, a 1-year-old from the Manchineri tribe was shot in the head.
These attacks are part of a larger pattern of abuse, marginalization and neglect. Since 2007, 833 Indians have been murdered and 351 have committed suicide, according to the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health — rates far above the national average. Among children, the mortality rate is two times higher than in the rest of the Brazilian population.

27 May
Brazil’s Crisis: How Fighting Corruption Could Imperil Political Stability
(NYT) On Wednesday, Mr. Temer deployed the military in the streets of the capital, Brasília, after thousands of protesters clashed with the police. Although the defense minister said the troops had been sent merely to “restore order,” many saw the move as a sign of profound insecurity from an already weak government.
Political science suggests this is an example of how the “islands of honesty” in corrupt systems — like independent prosecutors and courts with the willingness and authority to enforce the rule of law — can clash with networks of entrenched corruption, both provoking and spoiling efforts by political elites to protect themselves.
The politicians who pushed for Ms. Rousseff’s impeachment appear to have wrongly assumed that the powerful prosecutor’s office and judiciary would fall in line, and that a Temer government would be able to shut down or limit the corruption investigation.
That has not happened. The corruption prosecutions have continued under Mr. Temer’s presidency, and have focused on some of the most powerful people in the country.

22 May
Brazil president retreats from attempts to suspend investigation
(BBC) Brazil’s President Michel Temer has asked the Supreme Court to proceed with an investigation against him for obstruction of justice and corruption.
His lawyers say that a secret recording that appears to incriminate him has been edited 70 times.
On Saturday Mr Temer filed a petition at the Supreme Court to have the investigation suspended.
But his lawyers now say they want the investigation to go ahead to have the president’s name cleared.
How Brazil’s New Political Crisis Might Play Out: QuickTake Q&A
(Bloomberg) Brazil plunged back into crisis when the Supreme Court authorized an investigation into President Michel Temer on accusations of passive corruption and obstruction of justice. The allegations are the latest development in Operation Carwash, a sprawling corruption probe that has implicated many of the country’s business and political elite and helped bring down Temer’s predecessor, Dilma Rousseff. Temer has repeatedly denied the allegations, but several opposition legislators have called for impeachment, as has Brazil’s influential bar association, the OAB

11 May
Brazil’s ex-president Lula decries persecution as he faces corruption charges in court
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the most popular president in Brazilian history, was questioned by Sérgio Moro, a national hero for jailing the rich and powerful

10 May
Brazil’s archaeologists join fight to preserve country’s ancient lands
The plan, to be debated by Congress on Wednesday, would roll back licensing rules for infrastructure projects, making it easier for construction companies to bulldoze sites of ancient Amazonian civilisations before they have been excavated.
Critics argue this is a new front in a battle for the country’s identity, since it could literally bury irreplaceable records of indigenous civilisations and reinforce the widely held but incorrect view that Brazil’s history began with settlement by Europeans.
“We draw upon the past to build our identity as a pluralist nation. This identity is now at risk, being sidelined by the image of a white and racist country,” archaeology lecturers from the Federal University of Western Pará wrote in a letter to congressmen.
Historians believe more than six million people lived in the Amazon forest before the arrival of predominantly Portuguese and Spanish explorers, gold miners and slavers, whose guns and viruses wiped out the vast majority of the native population over the following centuries.
Studies of pot fragments, black earth and contours of moats and walls suggest some of these communities were far more advanced than the later Victorian-era stereotype of “jungle savages” suggested.
[Stone age etchings found in Amazon basin as river levels fall — Drought in Brazil reveals engravings up to 7,000 years old – evidence of ancient civilisation]

23 April
Stadium deals, corruption and bribery: the questions at the heart of Brazil’s Olympic and World Cup ‘miracle’
The two mega-events were framed as a reason for Brazilians to be proud of a modern and forward-looking country; instead the economy has been shattered and a supreme court investigation keeps unearthing unsavoury allegations
Beyond the debate about the use of the stadiums, legacy and the projection of a young nation, it was the police that took centre stage as soon as athletes from all over the world left the country. Over the seven months that followed, politicians would be arrested and formally accused, while sports officials, judges and many of the venues would be the target of police operations.
What began as an investigation into the former state oil company Petrobras in 2014 soon also became a criminal process about the organisation of the two mega-events, paid for mostly with public funds and presented to citizens as a reason to be proud. The latest release of official documents by the Brazilian federal supreme court, seen by the Observer, shows that the venues were not only cathedrals of new world records but are alleged to have channelled millions of dollars worth of bribes. Brazil’s supreme court opened investigations into around 100 politicians, based on hundreds of hours of testimonies by past and present executives at the construction and chemicals conglomerate Odebrecht.

15 March
Brazil’s corruption inquiry list names all the power players – except the president
Every senior leader of Michel Temer’s party named on leaked list, but some worry that the investigation’s scope may well make it weaker
Five members of the cabinet, two former presidents – Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff – the current and former heads of both houses of Congress and at least two former opposition leaders – Aécio Neves and José Serra – are among the 83 politicians whose accusations were referred on Tuesday to the supreme court, according to local media.7 February
(WaPost World View) Is Brazil posed for its own Trumpist insurgency? After almost a decade and a half of leftist rule, Latin America’s largest nation is currently being governed by Michael Temer, an unpopular career politician who came to office amidst an impeachment scandal last year. In the space of five months, he has lurched Brazil’s politics to the right. But he’s possibly paving the way for an even more radical figure.
“With less than two years left in [Temer’s] term, Brazil seems to be waiting for its Trump to come along,” wrote my colleague Nick Miroff. “Populist outsiders such as the new mayor of Sao Paulo, a business tycoon who starred on the Brazilian version of ‘Celebrity Apprentice,’ are often mentioned among the early favorites for 2018.9 January
Brazil: Dozens Killed in 2 More Prison Uprisings
In Brazil, two more deadly prison uprisings have left 37 people dead, bringing the total death toll from prison uprisings over the last week to more than 90 people. Brazil has the fourth largest prison population in the world, after the United States, Russia and China. Widespread overcrowding in Brazilian prisons have (sic) led to a series of deadly uprisings in recent years.5 January
The End of the World? In Brazil, It’s Already Here
(NYT Op-ed) At least that’s what people here are saying. A constitutional amendment passed by the Senate last month is being called “the end of the world” amendment by its opponents. Why? Because the consequences of the amendment look disastrous — and long lasting. It will impose a 20-year cap on all federal spending, including education and health care.
The budget amendment, like many of Mr. Temer’s policies, will harm Brazil’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens for decades to come. This is not just the view of the president’s left-wing opponents. Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, recently said that the measure will “lock in inadequate and rapidly dwindling expenditure on health care, education and social security, thus putting an entire generation at risk of social protection standards well below those currently in place.”2 January
Dozens died in a Brazil prison riot. At least 56 inmates were killed during clashes over control of drug routes between rival gangs at the Anisio Jobim Penitentiary Center in Manaus. Officials say that 40 of 87 prisoners who escaped have been recaptured.

2016

16 December
What is Rio’s Olympic legacy?

25 September
Brazil’s Generation Discontent
An Effort to Make Fringe Politics Mainstream
(Foreign Affairs) Under the leadership of Temer, who has a 14 percent approval rating, the solutions to salvage the economy constitute a rightward turn, targeting the country’s fiscal deficit before addressing its productivity gap or uneven tax structure. The government is currently fast-tracking a dramatic 20-year spending freeze that would override constitutional requirements for investments in heath and education, which has caused nationwide protests. In August, a Temer minister discarded a longtime agenda item of the Brazilian left—a pact to reduce homicides in the country, which has a murder rate of 32.4 out of every 100,000 people, the 11th highest in the world.
“A massive challenge is a lack of public understanding about the measures that are being proposed right now,” Ortellado said. Many of the lawmakers who impeached Rousseff, decrying her economic mismanagement, voted to block austerity when she tried to implement it in 2015. As news organizations in Brazil are bleeding staffers and fielding accusations of bias, civil society and new journalism initiatives are attempting to piece together a factual, historically situated debate about economic policy. Sites such as Pública, Lupa, and Aos Fatos have revealed inconsistencies from politicians across the spectrum in Rio’s and São Paulo’s municipal elections.
New Brazilian electoral law meant to cut corruption impedes donation tracking
13 September
(Quartz) Brazil booted its former speaker out of Congress. Eduardo Cunha, who led the impeachment proceedings against Dilma Rousseff, was voted out of the lower house after he was discovered to have $5 million in secret Swiss bank accounts. Cunha was suspended from politics for eight years. He has threatened to bring others down with him.
1 September
Brazil After Dilma Roussef
By Alex Cuadros
(The New Yorker) On Wednesday, thousands of people packed Paulista Avenue, in central São Paulo. Many were there to celebrate the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female President. Meanwhile, many others had turned out to condemn what they called a golpe: a coup. Earlier in the day, the country’s senators had voted overwhelmingly to remove Rousseff from office, but this apparent consensus belied a deep national rift, and on the street the crowds were bitterly divided.
The impeachment trial lasted nearly a week. Rousseff was under no obligation to defend herself in person, and most believed she had little hope of swaying the senators’ votes. But she decided to testify anyway, submitting to fourteen hours of questioning. For her, it was a chance to define her place in history. …
Rousseff’s removal is now official, and in her place comes an administration with an agenda that was not endorsed by voters. Though Brazil’s new President, Michel Temer, ran on Rousseff’s ticket in 2014, he hails from the business-friendly Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, or P.M.D.B., which turned against the Workers’ Party last year. Since taking charge of the government as interim President, in May, when Rousseff was suspended from office to await trial, Temer has pursued deep austerity measures that include capping spending on health care and education. On Wednesday, after being sworn in, Temer gave a speech in which he explained, “The government is like your family. If it’s indebted, it must lower expenses to pay its debts.” Though simplistic, Temer’s message lined up with the prescriptions of many economists—but left out of his speech was the fact that, to shore up support for the impeachment vote, he had recently pushed for increases to top government salaries that will add billions of dollars to the federal budget.
Behind the scenes in Brasília, lawmakers now reportedly hope to engineer an acordão—a grand bargain—that includes an amnesty to shield them from prosecution. Their hope is to stave off real change to the deeply corrupt system that produced them. As Temer consolidates his power, perhaps the most urgent question for Brazil’s democracy is whether real investigations will be allowed to continue, or whether politicians like Jucá will get their way. In Portuguese, the word golpe means “coup”—but it can also mean “con.”
29 August
(Quartz) Political infighting and the impasse it generated at a time when Brazil should have been taking economic emergency measures was cited by analysts and rating agencies as a reason for downgrading the prospects of the Brazilian economy. But unfortunately for Dilma Rousseff , Brazil’s outlook has brightened a bit since she was suspended in May while awaiting results of the trial. Meanwhile, Brazil’s acting president, Michel Temer, has become somewhat of a market darling . Under his tenure, Brazil’s currency, the real, has strengthened against the dollar and the country’s stock market rallied; its Bovespa index is up 9% since he took over.
After impeachment, Brazil’s road ahead filled with challenges
9 August
As Rio [2016] continues, so does Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment. The Senate will vote—with a majority of 81 votes needed —to begin a trial against the suspended president.
5 August
Rio’s Olympic opening ceremony was as diverse and divided as Brazil is right now
(Quartz) In Rio tonight (Aug. 5), the narrative that unfolded before the parade of nations was centered on the various racial and national groups that have come together to form the Brazil that exists today. It’s made up of indigenous, European, African, Middle Eastern, and Asian peoples, and filled of course with music, dancing, and the supermodel Gisele Bundchen. But the story also suggested that Brazil faces a growing and alarming threat.The explicit threat is climate change, which the ceremony presented as a crisis endangering the entire world.
It was a strong political statement that called all nations to action—though as some television and Twitter commentators pointed out, there was some dissonance in a country that has destroyed large parts of the Amazon rainforest delivering an environmental warning from a city rife with pollution.

Stratfor: The impeachment vote comes amid waves of social unrest that were triggered not by the “Panama Papers,” but by a 2-year-old corruption scandal involving the state-owned oil company, Petroleo Brasileiro, and rings of public officials and lawmakers. Roussef, ironically, is not accused of wrongdoing in that affair (known as “Operation Carwash”) or of otherwise trying to enrich herself. Rather, she is accused of damaging Brazil’s economic reputation by trying to plug up government deficits with funds from public banks.

Operation Car Wash (Portuguese: Operação Lava Jato) is an investigation being carried out by the Federal Police of Brazil, Curitiba Branch, and judicially commanded by Judge Sérgio Moro since March 17, 2014. Initially a money laundering investigation, it has expanded to cover allegations of corruption at the state-controlled oil company Petrobras, where it is alleged that executives accepted bribes in return for awarding contracts to construction firms at inflated prices. This criminal “system” is known as “Petrolão – Operation Car Wash”.^[4]The operation was named as such because the alleged ring used a currency exchange and money transfer service at the Posto da Torre (Tower Gas Station) in Brasilia to move the money acquired by illicit means.

29 July
Brazil’s Lula to stand trial for obstruction of justice: court
Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the former chief executive of investment bank Grupo BTG Pactual SA will stand trial for obstruction of justice, documents from a federal court in Brasilia showed on Friday.
(Reuters) The case dates to last November, when former Senator Delcidio do Amaral and Andre Esteves, the founder and former CEO of BTG Pactual, were arrested for allegedly trying to stop a jailed former Petrobras executive from collaborating with Brazil’s largest-ever corruption investigation.
(Quartz) The source of Rio’s filthy water. Guanabara Bay, which will host Olympic events such as distance swimming and sailing, is so dirty that doctors are warning athletes not to get water in their mouths. But the Sarapuí River that feeds it starts clean and drinkable. The New York Times’ John Branch describes how the river’s journey through areas rife with poverty now threatens the athletes’ health and Rio’s image.
Brazil’s threats of WTO action are ‘plane’ hypocrisy
Jayson Myers, President and CEO, Canadian Manufacturers
(Ottawa Citizen) It’s rich, to say the least, to hear the latest threats being made by Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer to the effect that Brazil is considering a WTO case against Canada, charging that Bombardier is being unfairly subsidized as a result of Quebec’s equity investment in the new C-Series.
The threat comes at the same time Embraer is promoting its own KC390 aircraft for use in Canadian search-and-rescue missions. Here’s the hypocrisy: Embraer doesn’t like a genuine Canadian equity investment in a Canadian company, but is OK when it comes to Canadians spending tax dollars to buy an aircraft whose development was entirely paid for by the Brazilian government.
The development costs of the KC390 were fully funded by the Brazilian government to the tune of $1.5 billion. The government covered the costs of developing new technology for the aircraft and building two prototypes, as well as the costs of the equipment required by Embraer to put its aircraft into production. And, there is more.
1 July
Brazil’s Olympic Catastrophe
Can Rio pull off the Games with only weeks to go?
RIO DE JANEIRO — IT’S official: The Olympic Games in Rio are an unnatural disaster.
(NYT) On June 17, fewer than 50 days before the start of the Games, the state of Rio de Janeiro declared a “state of public calamity.” A financial crisis is preventing the state from honoring its commitments to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the governor said. That crisis is so severe, he said, it could eventually bring about “a total collapse in public security, health, education, mobility and environmental management.” The authorities are now authorized to ration essential public services and the state is eligible for emergency funds from the federal government.
HOW did everything get so messed up? Money is one problem. “The state is bankrupt,” Francisco Dornelles, the interim Rio governor, admitted in an interview with a magazine two weeks ago.
The incumbent governor, who has lymphoma, is on sick leave. Just before Christmas, he declared a “health system emergency” as hospitals closed units and money ran out for equipment, supplies and salaries. Months later, the state started delaying civil servants’ salaries and pension checks. Teachers have gone on strike and students have occupied dozens of schools in protest. The state already owes $21 billion to Brazil’s federal government and $10 billion to public banks and international lenders. A budget shortfall of $5.5 billion is projected for this year. An $860 million loan has already been granted to help cover the cost of security at the Games.
The fiscal disaster could be attributed to many factors, including a national economic crisis — but the huge expansion of the government payroll and reckless spending for the Olympics are likely causes.
However, the mayor of the capital, Eduardo Paes, claimed that City Hall is in good financial shape and that the fiscal situation would not affect Olympic preparations.
So if it’s not only money, maybe the problem is also politics. Brazil is, of course, having a major political crisis. The president, Dilma Rousseff, was forced to step aside on May 12 because of allegations that she manipulated the state budget. The political turmoil has paralyzed the country and frozen the economy. Decisions on important reforms and infrastructure projects are being delayed, and the uncertainty has discouraged investment. But Leonardo Picciani, who took over as sports minister after Ms. Rousseff’s suspension, asserts that the Games will be “fantastic.” Almost everything was ready by the time he took up his post, he claims.
21 June
Oi Bankruptcy Sends Shockwaves Through Brazil’s Financial System
(Bloomberg) The bankruptcy filing of Oi SA, the largest in Brazil’s history, is reverberating through the nation’s strained financial industry as investors tally the potential hit to creditors.
Even as Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris said he’s prepared to invest in the wireless carrier, Monday’s bankruptcy filing is likely to leave Banco do Brasil SA, Itau Unibanco Holding SA and others with steep losses on their holdings of Oi debt and trigger payments on $14 billion of derivatives contracts that are designed to pay out in an event of a default. Shares of Banco do Brasil slumped 4.8 percent, and Itau dropped 2.2 percent.
16 June
Brazil tourism minister resigns over graft scandal
(BBC) Henrique Alves … is the third minister to leave interim President Michel Temer’s government.
All are implicated in a major corruption scandal at the state oil company Petrobras.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court released testimony by an ex-executive implicating 20 politicians including Mr Temer. He denies the allegations.
What’s wrong with Brazil?
Who is Michel Temer?
In a television broadcast, Mr Temer dismissed the testimony as frivolous lies.
The allegations come from Sergio Machado, the former chief executive of Petrobras subsidiary Transpetro.
Mr Machado is himself under investigation and has made a plea bargain with prosecutors.
23 May
Brazil minister ousted after secret tape reveals plot to topple President Rousseff
Planning minister Romero Jucá was recorded saying ‘We have to change the government’ as the only means to stop a sweeping corruption investigation
(The Guardian) Just 10 days after taking office, the planning minister, Romero Jucá, announced that he would “go on leave” following the release of a secretly taped telephone conversation in which he said Rousseff needed to be removed to quash a vast corruption investigation that implicated him and other members of the country’s political elite.
It is unlikely to be the last blow for the interim president, Michel Temer, whose centre-right cabinet includes seven ministers implicated by the Lava Jato (Car Wash) investigation into kickbacks and money laundering at the state-run oil company Petrobras.
17 May
Dilma Rousseff and the Chronic Dysfunction of Brazil’s Politics
Three decades after the military ceded power to a civilian government, Brazil’s latest experiment with democracy is facing yet another identity crisis.
(The New Yorker) … in getting rid of her, the Congress has swapped one President tainted by scandal for another. Temer leads the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, which, like the Workers’ Party, has been implicated in the petrolão (or “big oil”) scandal that saw billions of dollars funnelled from the state oil company to off-the-books campaign coffers and Swiss bank accounts. And while Rousseff is not suspected of direct involvement in the scheme, Temer is—as are several of his newly appointed cabinet ministers.
Many Brazilians wanted Rousseff out, but they weren’t calling for Temer. Surveys show that just two per cent of Brazilians would vote for him for President, and that sixty per cent want to see him impeached, too.
12 May
What is Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff accused of?
(Financial Times) Ms Rousseff’s government is accused of using state-run banks and funds to pay upfront its regular expenses, such as benefits payments. The TCU has argued these upfront payments amounted to loans to the federal government from the state-owned banks. Under Brazilian law, this is illegal.
A special report by the senate’s impeachment commission said the total of the pedaladas reached R$58.7bn late last year before the government finally repaid most of this amount except for R$11.3bn.
The institutions, state banks Caixa Econômica, Banco do Brasil and BNDES, and the FGTS workers’ guarantee fund, fronted payments for programmes including the Bolsa Família, a monthly stipend for the poor, and Minha Casa, Minha Vida, a low-cost housing programme.Under Brazil’s fiscal responsibility laws, creative accounting is considered a crime in certain circumstances, such as when the federal government takes out unauthorised loans with state banks or performs certain budgetary operations without the permission of congress. Update: Brazil no closer to stability after momentous impeachment vote – Senators in Brasília decide overwhelmingly to remove Rousseff from office
10 May
Brazil’s Continuing Political Chaos
(The Atlantic) The speaker of the lower house of Brazil’s Congress announced yesterday that he would try to annul the chamber’s recent vote to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, surprising everyone. Today, he reversed that decision, surprising everyone again. Brazil’s Senate appears ready to proceed with a vote tomorrow to determine whether to continue the impeachment process—and the odds are not in Rousseff’s favor. If lawmakers vote to impeach, Rousseff will be suspended, replaced by the vice president, and put on a trial that could last six months.
1 May
Vanessa Barbara: In Brazil, a New Nostalgia for Military Dictatorship
(NYT) According to a 2014 poll, 51 percent of Brazilians think that the streets were safer during the military regime. … There is also a widespread perception that corruption, which is undoing the current government, didn’t exist in those days. That’s not true, of course. It’s now reported that under the military regime there were cases of the police working with drug traffickers, and governors taking bribes, among other examples of graft. What didn’t exist in those days was freedom of speech and a free press to denounce government misdeeds. …
In the past few decades, and especially since the Workers Party came to power 13 years ago, … reality has changed, even if incompletely. Now democracy means that every citizen is of equal status and everybody deserves a voice. Perhaps all this nostalgia for a military dictatorship is really about keeping people in their place.
27 April
Are Brazil politicians playing their own ‘House of Cards’?
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff may be impeached and suspended as early as May 12
She would be replaced by vice-president Michel Temer, who critics describe as “Brazil’s Frank Underwood”
22 April
To See the Real Story in Brazil, Look at Who Is Being Installed as President — and Finance Chiefs
Glenn Greenwald
(The Intercept) As my partner, David Miranda, wrote this morning in his Guardian op-ed: “It has now become clear that corruption is not the cause of the effort to oust Brazil’s twice-elected president; rather, corruption is merely the pretext.” In response, Brazil’s media elites will claim (as Temer did) that once Dilma is impeached, then the other corrupt politicians will most certainly be held accountable, but they know this is false, and Temer’s shocking support for Cunha makes that clear. Indeed, press reports show that Temer is planning to install as attorney general — the key government contact for the corruption investigation — a politician specifically urged for that position by Cunha. As Miranda’s op-ed explains, “The real plan behind Rousseff’s impeachment is to put an end to the ongoing investigation, thus protecting corruption, not punishing it.”
So to summarize: Brazilian financial and media elites are pretending that corruption is the reason for removing the twice-elected president of the country as they conspire to install and empower the country’s most corrupted political figures. Brazilian oligarchs will have succeeded in removing from power a moderately left-wing government that won four straight elections in the name of representing the country’s poor, and are literally handing control over the Brazilian economy (the world’s seventh largest) to Goldman Sachs and bank industry lobbyists.
Brazil: Beyond The Impeachment Process
(BCA Blog) Regardless which party is in charge and who is the president, the fragmentation in Brazil’s congress, which has 27 parties spread out along all ideological lines, is a structural constraint to governance. This is especially true when it comes to adopting painful fiscal reforms, amid a shrinking economy, to prevent a fiscal/public debt crisis.
Barring significant fiscal tightening starting this year, Brazil is headed for a fiscal/public debt crisis in the coming years.
20 April
Brazil falls in Press Freedom Index, now 104th
Continuing conflicts of interest in the Brazilian media and a very disturbing level of violence against journalists have caused Brazil to fall another five places in the 2016 World Press Freedom Index, published today by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
19 April
Celso Rocha de Barros: Dilma Rousseff’s Impeachment Isn’t a Coup, It’s a Cover-Up
(NYT) Ms. Rousseff’s supporters claim that her impending impeachment is part of a coup. It’s not. Legal procedure is being followed, and it seems likely that Ms. Rousseff broke the law. But that doesn’t mean it’s right.
The crisis brought on by the Operation Car Wash scandals should have been part of Brazil’s painful — and extraordinary — process of establishing a functioning judiciary and fighting corruption. But Ms. Rousseff’s fall is not the logical conclusion of that happy story. Far from being the dawn of a new era, it may very well turn out to be the way the old political class reasserts control over the country — and escapes jail.
18 April
Brazil’s Lower House of Congress Votes for Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff
(NYT) Brazilian legislators voted on Sunday night to approve impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, the nation’s first female president, whose tenure has been buffeted by a dizzying corruption scandal, a shrinking economy and spreading disillusionment.
After three days of impassioned debate, the lower house of Congress, the Chamber of Deputies, voted to send the case against Ms. Rousseff to the Senate. Its 81 members will vote by a simple majority on whether to hold a trial on charges that the president illegally used money from state-owned banks to conceal a yawning budget deficit in an effort to bolster her re-election prospects. That vote is expected to take place next month.
Dilma Rousseff: Brazilian congress votes to impeach president
(The Guardian) On a dark night, arguably the lowest point was when Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right deputy from Rio de Janeiro, dedicated his yes vote to Carlos Brilhante Ustra, the colonel who headed the Doi-Codi torture unit during the dictatorship era. Rousseff, a former guerrilla, was among those tortured.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, his son and also a deputy, used his time at the microphone to honour the general responsible for the military coup in 1964.
Deputies were called one by one to the microphone by the instigator of the impeachment process, Cunha – an evangelical conservative who is himself accused of perjury and corruption – and one by one they condemned the president.
Yes, voted Paulo Maluf, who is on Interpol’s red list for conspiracy. Yes, voted Nilton Capixiba, who is accused of money laundering. “For the love of God, yes!” declared Silas Camara, who is under investigation for forging documents and misappropriating public funds.
And yes, voted the vast majority of the more than 150 deputies who are implicated in crimes but protected by their status as parliamentarians.
15 April
To Impeach or Not to Impeach Dilma Rousseff
From former guerrilla to fast-rising protege of Lula da Silva, she was supposed to preside over Brazil’s rise. Instead, the Brazilian president’s career may soon be over for good
(FP) The central paradox of Brazil’s current political tumult, though, is that Rousseff doesn’t stand accused of sneakily trying to line her pockets with cash. Instead, her opponents in the National Congress — many themselves under investigation for malfeasance — have formally charged her with violating financial rules in the constitution, based on her use of funds from state banks to help close gaps in the budget.
Rousseff counters with the argument that this practice was employed by presidents before her. (Her critics insist that records from the Central Bank of Brazil reveal that Rousseff relied on such tactics to a far greater extent than her predecessors did.) …
Today, it’s as if the country is mourning that lost trajectory. The narrative arc of Brazil as Latin America’s economic superstar has been broken. The heroes of those happier times — Petrobras, the national cash cow, and Lula and his party, the empathetic champions of the poor — are so sullied by scandal that it’s no longer clear whether they were ever quite what they seemed. For the first time in more than two decades, Brazil feels rudderless. Turning this story of scandal and disappointment around would be difficult even for a leader with superb political acumen, and Rousseff was never blessed with that kind of shrewdness. …
At a recent meeting with foreign journalists, Rousseff clarified what she means when she says she’s facing a coup: “I am not comparing the coup here to the military coups of the past, but it would be a breaking of the democratic order of Brazil.… [It] will have consequences. Maybe not immediately, but it will leave a deep scar on Brazilians’ political life.” On the latter point, she’s probably right. Without more potent formal grounds for impeachment, it’s hard to see how history will sit comfortably with her ousting by a Congress stocked with suspected scoundrels. Yet the idea of 200 million people being stuck with a powerless leader for 32 more months is hardly more reassuring. This is the agony of Brazil’s current dilemma.
29 March
(Seeking Alpha) Brazil’s largest party will decide whether to break away from President Dilma Rousseff’s floundering coalition Tuesday, sharply raising the odds she’ll be impeached amid a corruption scandal. Brazil’s stocks and currency rose Monday on the prospect of her removal. Many blame Rousseff for running Latin America’s largest economy into the ground, as the country grapples with a major Zika epidemic and scrambles to host the Olympic Games in August.
22 March
Brazil officials conduct raids linked to Petrobras corruption investigation
Searches and detentions reported in inquiry related to Odebrecht construction company, a day after Petrobras reported a quarterly loss of $10.2bn
(The Guardian) Brazil also is mired in its worst recession in decades, and it is ground zero for the Zika virus outbreak that has spread across the Americas as Rio de Janeiro prepares to host the Olympics in August.
Brazil crisis: There may be bigger threats than Rousseff’s removal
(BBC) A decade ago Brazil was the darling of the developing world. A nation whose economy was booming, not just because it was selling raw materials and commodities to China but because it was building its own high-tech industries, training its own engineers and becoming a genuine global “player”. Upwardly mobile Brazil soon shoved the UK aside to become the world’s sixth largest economy.
Economic and social improvements went hand in hand. An innovative welfare programme called “Bolsa Familia” (Family Allowance), with its emphasis on nutrition and education, helped to lift an estimated 40 million Brazilians out of poverty.
It was no surprise when, in 2006, the popular leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was re-elected as president nor that, four years later, his chosen successor Dilma Rousseff became Brazil’s first female leader.
The almost exclusively white, middle class demonstrators who have been demanding the removal of President Rousseff and the jailing of Lula have a long-held enmity towards the Workers’ Party and its left wing economic policies. A small minority of protesters at anti-government events also openly call for a return of military rule.
This is still, despite the gains of recent years, a country with deep divisions between rich and poor, black and white. …
There is evidence to suggest that politicians have tried to influence the investigators’ work , led by judge Sergio Moro, but they must show they are actively pursuing corrupt individuals regardless of political allegiance. The probe has certainly reinforced one perception – that politicians of all colours blatantly milk the system dry, enjoying near total impunity. Meanwhile, ordinary folk are left to deal with the consequences of an economy now deep in recession, rising inflation and a fear of losing many of the gains of recent years.
20 March
Brazil’s Rousseff lacks Senate votes to defeat impeachment: senator
(Reuters) A survey published on Saturday by polling firm Datafolha showed support for Rousseff’s impeachment rising to 68 percent, close to the record level of 71 percent reached in August.
With opposition parties hurrying along proceedings, a special impeachment committee could present its findings as soon as mid-April. A plenary session of the lower house would then need to vote on whether to send Rousseff for trial in the Senate. … Lula’s lawyers said on Sunday they had appealed to the head of the Supreme Court to overturn the suspension of his ministerial appointment.
19 March
Brazil Supreme Court Judge Blocks Former President Lula Da Silva From Chief Of Staff Post
(International Business Times) Lula’s appointment as chief of staff means only the Supreme Court can investigate him, placing him beyond the reach of a massive graft probe investigating corruption at state oil company Petrobras.
Brazil in crisis as Dilma Rousseff fights to stave off impeachment threat
Even the revered former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – Lula – has been dragged into a long-running corruption probe that is dividing Brazilians
(The Guardian) After a week that began with the country’s largest anti-government protests ever seen and ended with its revered former leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, blocked from taking up a cabinet post as a result of his alleged involvement in the Petrobras corruption scandal, Rousseff now faces impeachment in Congress that could see her forced out of office next month.
Arko Advice puts the possibility of impeachment at 60%. “It is the most likely scenario, but the game is still being played,” he said.
Foreign investors are betting against her. Brazil’s currency, the real, which fell almost 50% against the dollar last year as the economy shrank by 3.8%, started to surge last week as Rousseff’s demise appeared more probable. On Thursday, the stock market posted its best performance since 2009.
18 March
Brazil is in danger of turning the clock back on democracy
Eliane Brum
Federal judge Sérgio Moro has become the high-profile face of the campaign to impeach Dilma Rousseff. But is he overstepping the mark?
(The Guardian) Brazil is a country in uproar. The demonstrators in favour of the impeachment of the president are in uproar. The demonstrators opposed to her impeachment are in uproar. Both sides are in uproar against those who refuse to side one way or the other.
In the face of the current crisis, which is not only political and economic but also one of identity, the worst thing that could happen to Brazil would be to turn back the clock; instead of tackling its chronic defects in order to build a future, recreating the nation’s past in its own image and likeness. The risk of this happening has looked ever more likely in recent days. And given the loss of faith in politicians and traditional political parties, dogged by charges of corruption, the judiciary has been filling the political void.
For the entire country the fabricated image was that the greatest popular leader since the return to democracy had been arrested. If he was arrested he must have been guilty. In fact, the former president is being investigated for corruption. Nothing has so far been proved. For Brazilians, however, it was as if he had been tried and sentenced.
Brazil Is Engulfed by Ruling Class Corruption — and a Dangerous Subversion of Democracy
Glenn Greenwald, Andrew Fishman & David Miranda
(Intercept) “almost every corner of the political system [is] under the cloud of scandal.” That includes not only Rousseff’s moderately left-wing Workers Party, or PT — which is rife with serious corruption — but also the vast majority of the centrist and right-wing political and economic factions working to destroy PT, which are drowning in at least an equal amount of criminality. In other words, PT is indeed deeply corrupt and awash in criminal scandal, but so is virtually every political faction working to undermine it and vying to seize that party’s democratically obtained power.
Put simply, this is a campaign to subvert Brazil’s democratic outcomes by monied factions that have long hated the results of democratic elections, deceitfully marching under an anti-corruption banner: quite similar to the 1964 coup. Indeed, much of the Brazilian right longs for restoration of the military dictatorship, and factions at these “anti-corruption” protests have been openly calling for the end of democracy.
None of this is a defense of PT. Both because of genuine widespread corruption in that party and national economic woes, Dilma and PT are intensely unpopular among all classes and groups, even including the party’s working-class base. But the street protests — as undeniably large and energized as they have been — are driven by those who are traditionally hostile to PT. The number of people participating in these protests — while in the millions — is dwarfed by the number (54 million) who voted to re-elect Dilma less than two years ago. In a democracy, governments are chosen by voting, not by displays of street opposition — particularly where, as in Brazil, the protests are drawn from a relatively narrow societal segment.
17 March
Dilma’s soft auto-coup
While staying as a figurehead, Brazil’s president may be relinquishing power, leaving the government in Lula’s hands. Here are four developments that have led to this remarkable turn of events.
(Open Canada) Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is handing over effective control of the government to her mentor and former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva. While on Thursday she formally named him head of the government’s non-military affairs (chefe da Casa Civil) — though a judge may be successful in preventing the appointment, even temporarily — it is clear to all that he is now in charge and has become de facto president of the country. Rousseff, who was re-elected barely 18 months ago, thus becomes a figurehead devoid of real power. Institutionally, this development makes short shrift of the Brazilian Constitution, putting supreme executive power in the hands of a man who holds no elected office whatsoever. …
A corruption scandal of pharaonic proportions is shaking the whole political class and especially the ruling Workers’ Party (PT), with hundreds of millions of dollars diverted from the coffer of the state-controlled oil company, Petrobras. To top things off, years of neglect of mosquito control is now blowing back as massive epidemics of dengue, Chikungunya and Zika fever stretch health resources and confront large sectors of its population, mostly the poor, to difficult and sometimes tragic predicaments.
Protests sweep Brazil after release of Lula-Rousseff phone tap
(Financial Times) Federal judge Sérgio Moro, who is leading investigations into corruption at oil company Petrobras, released recordings obtained through a police wire tap late on Wednesday, which sparked anger nationwide when they were aired on radio and television networks.
In one conversation recorded on Wednesday afternoon, Ms Rousseff is heard calling Mr Lula da Silva to tell him she was sending him a document confirming his ministerial appointment and that he should use it “only if it is necessary”.
16 March
How the Petrobras Scandal Ensnared Lula—and Upturned Brazilian Politics
(TIME) A major corruption investigation has seen the former President forced to deny charges of money laundering, while widespread public anger against the political class, abetted by Brazil’s worst economic slump for 25 years, had led to impeachment proceedings against his political mentee Rousseff. On March 13, at least a million people took part in nationwide protests against the government.
The crises all have roots in a criminal investigation into a colossal corruption scheme at state oil giant Petrobras, which has ensnared dozens of prominent politicians and now threatens the man long held up as the country’s savior. For Lula, the question now is: Can his reputation ever recover?
Protests swept across Brazil late Wednesday after explosive phone recordings fueled accusations that President Dilma Rousseff had appointed her predecessor Lula da Silva as a minister to grant him immunity. State prosecutors requested Lula’s arrest last week over charges of money laundering and fraud, accusing the former president of secretly owning a beachside penthouse at the center of the country’s corruption scandals. With Lula back, many are asking: Who is really in charge of Brazil?
11 March
(Seeking Alpha) A widening corruption probe has turned key lawmakers from Brazil’s largest party against President Dilma Rousseff, threatening to split her coalition and increasing chances of her impeachment in Congress this year. The patience of some legislators is fraying amid an investigation into the ruling party’s founder, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and from new allegations that money from a far-reaching corruption scandal helped fund Rousseff’s 2014 re-election.
24 February
Brazil: Moody’s becomes third rating agency to label country’s debt junk
Following on the heels of Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, Moody’s indicates negative outlook as Brazil grapples with worst recession in decades
(The Guardian) Moody’s said the outlook for Brazil’s issuer and bond ratings was negative due to the prospect of further deterioration in debt ratios amid an economic contraction, as well as the risk of further external shocks.
The announcement, which follows similar downgrades by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch came as no surprise and has been largely priced into markets. But that is hardly cause for relief. While everybody can see the Brazilian economy is in peril, nobody seems to foresee a way out.