The Great Brazil Topic

[Paleobrazilian]

After Sen. Delcidio do Amaral signing a whistleblower agreement, Lula being criminally investigated and charged, the PMDB deciding to leave the government in a few days and 4 million people on the streets yesterday demanding Dilma's exit, it's clear that this government is over.

Goodbye, Dilma.

[Paleobrazilian]

DILMA WAS WIRETAPPED BY THE FEDS ON A CONVERSATION THAT SHOWS SHE WAS TRYING TO INTERVENE ON THE INVESTIGATIONS RELATED TO LULA.

It's over for her. Truly over.

[Paleobrazilian]

The House will install Dilma's impeachment commission in a few moments. 65 representatives will compose it. According to sources a majority of its members are in favor of Dilma's impeachment. This will be decisive for the election of the President and the rapporteur of the commission. If both of them are on the impeachment side, then the works of the commission should be very quick.

[Paleobrazilian]

What is also interesting is that the ebb and flow of the Brazil equity markets as well as the value of BRL seems to be driven by international investors going in and out depending on the likelihood of  Dilma being out.  The basic idea seems to be that if Dilma is out then the focus of the government can shift to fixing structural problems versus Dilma using fiscal policy to prop up her regime.  Not sure if Dilma  is out it will play out that way but that how the market and mainly international investors are playing.   

That's exactly what investors are thinking. The thing is, they believe whoever takes office if/when Dilma is out will NOT run for reelection in 2018, so they believe whoever takes office would be willing to go through unpopular austerity measures to heal Brazil's fiscal policy.

Remember, there's even a chance that both Dilma AND Temer could fall in a few months. If this happens after December 31st 2016, then an indirect election would be triggered in an unicameral session of the Congress. Then, the Congress would probably handpick an "elder statesman" who wouldn't run for reelection in 2018 and who would be willing to go through all necessary measures to repair Brazil's economy. In fact, I've already heard that Nelson Jobim (PMDB/RS) is a name being ventilated for this scenario. Jobim is a former Supreme Court Justice that was also on FHC's, Lula's and Dilma's cabinet. He'd probably tick all the necessary boxes for the job.

[Paleobrazilian]

I got back to what I wrote after the 2014 elections

Given what we know about the post-election Brazil and how close this election was, as someone else mentioned here, this will be a Pyrrhic victory.  

I think at this stage everyone in PT must be kicking themselves for not losing the 2014 elections.  If and when Dilma and Lalu get more exposed on what they have done and what they have done just to stay in power and out of jail, PT will not be able to comeback to power in a generation in my view.

Actually, IMHO the facts revealed over the last few days show exactly will Dilma needed so much to win that election. They desperately needed to be shielded from the ongoing criminal investigations. They actually believed they could control the activities of the Federal Police. And that was yet another mistake of them.

They don't care about PT anymore. As Lula reportedly said a few weeks ago, "PT is over". For the left, the true problem is that the whole PT backlash seems to be tarnishing some other left wing parties that could have replaced the PT as Brazil's leading left wing party. PCdoB is pretty much doomed by now, as it was always a satellite for PT. PSOL will also be hurt for this, as they only reinforced the image of being PT's "auxiliary line" (as Aecio Neves said in 2014) over the last months. Meanwhile, PSB has decidedly moved to the center over the last year, and Marina Silva's REDE is also being forced to take a stand which will probably drive her to the center as well. Finally, as you probably realize by now, one of the biggest consequences of this whole mess is that Brazil, a country that swung between the center and the left ever since the military regime ended, has somewhat drifted to the right ever since the 2013 demonstrations. There's now both a fiscalyl conservative, socially liberal right in Brazil (something that never trully existed, a movement that's very strong among millenials and that's embodied by a new party called NOVO) and a socially conservative right that always existed, but has finally organized itself in Congress.

[Paleobrazilian]

What is also interesting is that the ebb and flow of the Brazil equity markets as well as the value of BRL seems to be driven by international investors going in and out depending on the likelihood of  Dilma being out.  The basic idea seems to be that if Dilma is out then the focus of the government can shift to fixing structural problems versus Dilma using fiscal policy to prop up her regime.  Not sure if Dilma  is out it will play out that way but that how the market and mainly international investors are playing.   

That's exactly what investors are thinking. The thing is, they believe whoever takes office if/when Dilma is out will NOT run for reelection in 2018, so they believe whoever takes office would be willing to go through unpopular austerity measures to heal Brazil's fiscal policy.

Remember, there's even a chance that both Dilma AND Temer could fall in a few months. If this happens after December 31st 2016, then an indirect election would be triggered in an unicameral session of the Congress. Then, the Congress would probably handpick an "elder statesman" who wouldn't run for reelection in 2018 and who would be willing to go through all necessary measures to repair Brazil's economy. In fact, I've already heard that Nelson Jobim (PMDB/RS) is a name being ventilated for this scenario. Jobim is a former Supreme Court Justice that was also on FHC's, Lula's and Dilma's cabinet. He'd probably tick all the necessary boxes for the job.

What measures would those be?

Immediately:

1 - reducing the debt by reducing unnecessary spending, reducing the number of cabinet positions and reducing the number of federal public servants,
2 - reforming the Constitution to reduce mandatory spending (Brazil has a bizarre public spending system where about 90% of all public spending is mandatory and cannot be blocked during a situation of crisis),
3 - cutting down absurd regulations and interventions created by Dilma that made investors flee the country.

With those 3 measures we'd be able to restore confidence and a balanced budget by 2018 IMO. Those should also be enough to bring back the inflation to its targeted rate of 4,5%. On the long term, though, more reforms would be needed, like:

4 - Welfare/pensions reform (the toughest one due to the political implications of this, this is probably the most important one, as Brazil's welfare system has a hole of over 100 billion reais)
5 - Tax reform (very tricky because there's a huge war between the federal government, states governments and local governments about this one)
6 - Government procurement reform (vital to cut down the corruption on the public service)
7 - Privatizations (Brazil has over 100 state owned companies, some of them running huge deficits).

[Paleobrazilian]

Who becomes president when Dilma is impeached?

The Vice President - Michel Temer (PMDB/SP)

[Paleobrazilian]

but the PMDB is also implicated in corruption? Is the VP himself clean? Could they try to impeach him too? Could there be early elections?

1 - yes, the PMDB is strongly implicated on the Petrobras scandal.

2 - while there's nothing solid against Temer until now, there are many rumours that something against him will emerge soon. Some claim he's strongly connected to a former Petrobras director called Jorge Zelada who's currently arrested on corruption charges.

3 - it's highly likely that Temer will face impeachment proceedings if he takes office, specially if something against him comes up.

4 - if both Dilma and Temer fall before January 1st 2017, a new general election would be triggered in 90 days to elect a stopgap President that would govern until 2018. If they fall after that, the stopgap President would be elect ed through an indirect election that would take place in an unicameral session of Congress.

[Paleobrazilian]

but the PMDB is also implicated in corruption? Is the VP himself clean? Could they try to impeach him too? Could there be early elections?

I believe the risk was that, if improperly gained funds were found to have been used in the presidential elections, the election results could be declared irregular and invalidated by the Supreme Court, claiming not only Dilma's post but Temer's job as well. If this were to happen-- I think-- before the end of this year, this would trigger a new presidential election, but if  it were to happen afterwards the Congress would be tasked with elected a caretaker to fill out Dilma's term. I could be wrong though-- one of our Brazilian posters can correct me if so.

Generally that's correct. The key detail is that, in this case, it would be the Superior Electoral Tribunal that would invalidate the election, not the Supreme Court. This is important because an appeal to the Supreme Court would be possible, even though tricky because a possible violation to the Constitution would be needed to refer the case to the Supreme Court.

I see Ciro Gomes has switched parties yet again, to the PDT. Amusingly, the same party as his Senator ex-wife. Did PROS stop existing?

No, it didn't. Ciro Gomes is the proof of why Brazil's multi-party system is broken. PDT is the seventh party of his political career. Remember, Ciro Gomes himself created PROS when he was unhappy that PSB wouldn't support Dilma's reelection. Then when the PDT offered him the possibility of running for President in 2018, he didn't think twice about making yet another switch.

By the way, here's what Ciro Gomes is up to over the last few weeks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKCbn4aOhDw

[Paleobrazilian]

[Paleobrazilian]

Those last days were a bloodbath for the government. The loss of PMDB had been expected for the last few days, but the way it happened today (a unanimous decision from PMDB's national committee) was humiliating for Dilma. All PMDB members working for the Federal Government will have to leave their offices over the next few days. Among those there are 6 Ministers (there were 7 until yesterday, but one of them decided to leave even before the decision from the national committee) and over 500 first, second and third tier officials appointed by Lula/Dilma.

Dilma will try to use those jobs to convince some other parties like PP, PR, PSD, PTB and PTN to remain by her side and vote against the impeachment. However, it's believed that all of those parties will break away from the government sooner or later, as they all face rebellions by their bases - pretty much all of their Congressmen want the impeachment. Plus, they know they could get the same perks from a Temer government without having to deal with Dilma's unpopularity. PMDB's decision will probably pave the way for those others and it won't take long until all of them adopt a position of "independence" from the government (a position that would be a de facto move to the opposition). PSD has already announced their Congressmen are freed to vote on the impeachment as they want, and it's believed at least 70% of them are pro-impeachment.

PMDB's decision is huge because for the last 31 years PMDB was always in government or at least pretty close to it. It has the largest number of Congressmen, the largest number of Senators, the largest number of Governors and the largest number of Mayors. Being such a huge monster of Brazil's politics, it's only natural that the other smaller, non-ideological parties will follow it. Make no mistake. They're not leaving the government because they want to be in opposition. They're leaving the government because they believe they will be the government soon.

Meanwhile, PT hurts more and more each passing day. Over the last weeks the party has lost Mayors from important cities like Jorge Lapas from Osasco and Rodrigo Neves from Niterói. Today it lost Senator Walter Pinheiro. It'll only get worse from now on. No one will want to be on their side on the local elections of October. In the State of São Paulo for example, it's pretty much certain that the party will be decimated.

While all of this is happening, Michel Temer has been very quiet, waiting for what will happen with the government. To avoid being courted by politicians in Brasília, he has spent much of the last few weeks in São Paulo, quietly talking to politicians from all parties, businessmen, etc. A national union government led by Temer is being quickly built by those actors.

As for the impeachment, the proceedings are well under way in the House of Representatives. Discussions and hearings are taking place almost daily. It's believed that the non-binding opinion of the impeachment commission will be read and voted by the commission on April 12th. After that, the rapport should be quickly sent to the floor. According to rumors, the President of the House, Congressman Eduardo Cunha (PMDB/RJ) will submit the opinion to the floor on April 17th. As you'll notice, April 17th will be a Sunday. This day was obviously chosen to provide large demonstrations in favor of the impeachment right before the voting (including demonstrations at Brasília, which should be absolutely gigantic). Also, pretty much all Brazilians will be watching the session on their homes. During the impeachment vote, all Congressmen will be forced to read out loud their vote, so voting against the impeachment will be a huge electoral handicap for whoever does so. Remember, Cunha is a longtime opponent of the government who's been on the impeachment train for long now, so he'll do everything he can to make Dilma's life harder.

IMO, there are about 280-300 solid votes for the impeachment right now, and about 100 solid votes against it. IMO, about 120 votes are in play right now (Brazil's House has 513 Congressmen). The opposition probably needs about half of those uncertain votes to safely cross the threshold of 342 votes needed to open impeachment proceedings and submit the matter to the Senate.

[Paleobrazilian]

I see Ciro Gomes has switched parties yet again, to the PDT. Amusingly, the same party as his Senator ex-wife. Did PROS stop existing?

No, it didn't. Ciro Gomes is the proof of why Brazil's multi-party system is broken. PDT is the seventh party of his political career. Remember, Ciro Gomes himself created PROS when he was unhappy that PSB wouldn't support Dilma's reelection. Then when the PDT offered him the possibility of running for President in 2018, he didn't think twice about making yet another switch.

By the way, here's what Ciro Gomes is up to over the last few weeks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKCbn4aOhDw

Your comment about Brazil's "broken party system" has made me curious. Could you answer these questions:

1) How many of the parties actually have coherent ideologies? Which ones?

2) I kind of get the appeal of PMDB, but why would one vote for one of the smaller non-ideological parties? (Clientelism, individual politicians?

3) How would you (or any of the other Brazilians) change the electoral system to fix the broken system?

1- there are 35 parties in Brazil. 25 of them are represented in Congress. That said:

a) Among those represented in Congress:

I'd say PT, PCdoB and PSOL are the only ones with well defined ideologies. PT may have taken some "pragmatic" measures in power, but it's still a left wing party and it's base has actually drifted further to the left as the political crisis got worse. The same could be said about PCdoB, which is a satellite of PT that's a bit further to the left than PT. Finally, PSOL has a solid, uniform hard left platform.

PDT is an interesting case. It has a well defined left wing and is strongly connected to the labor cause and the inheritance of one of the most important politicians in Brazil on the second half of the 20th century - Leonel Brizola. However, over the last 14 years, the party was forced to take some choices that could be seen as a betrayal of their former values. Anyway, IMO, the party moved back to the left over the last few months, as many center leaning politicians left the party over the last months (like Senators Cristovam Buarque and Reguffe and Mato Grosso's Governor Pedro Taques). Remember, PDT was the party where Dilma's political career started and she always had a good relationship with them. So, I guess you could call PDT an ideological party.

PV (Brazil's Green Party) could be considered ideological on the sense that it's strongly connected to the green movement and with a well defined program. However, unlike many Green Parties around the world, PV doesn't really tilt to the left on economical issues (Eduardo Jorge, PV's candidate to the presidency in 2014, made this very clear back then). I guess you could define it as a centrist party with a liberal streak (on the European sense of the word) and a strong concern for ecological causes.

On the right side of the political spectrum, PSC is probably the most well defined party, as a Christian Democracy party. It tilts hardly to the left on social issues, but it's hard to define it on the economy (some on the party, like 2014 presidential candidate Pastor Everaldo, are fiscal conservatives, but it's not a unanimous position on the party). Meanwhile, DEM has slowly morphed into a center-right, fiscal conservative party, but it's not a done deal yet - it'll take a little while for this process to consolidate.

PSDB is a mess ideologically. It has a center left faction (connected to its left wing roots, led by FHC and José Serra), a centrist, pragmatic faction (pretty much Aecio Neves' faction, it blends the party social democracy tilt with it's younger, fiscal conservative factions) and a younger, center right faction, formed by younger politicians that oppose vehemently PT's government (this is Geraldo Alckmin's faction). I think it's slowly drifting from the center-left to the center-right as the years go by, but this is an agonizingly slow process that's been hurting the party for the last 14 years.

PPS is a center-left party that goes along well with PSDB's center-left faction. Thus, PPS is pretty much a center-left satellite of PSDB nowadays. The same could be said about SD, a very curious case of a labor movement party with a fiscal conservative tilt.

PSB was traditionally a left party. Today, I'd say it's a center left party that's tilting to the center. They seem to be lost between its older faction (that's strongly left wing) and its new faction (that's centrist and pro business, largely created by Eduardo Campos).

Marina Silva's REDE is a huge question mark. No one really knows what it stands for. Not having a clear program hurt Marina Silva in 2014 and could hurt her again in the future.

All the other parties in Congress are totally non ideological. Sadly, there are some 15 parties with over 250 Congressmen and 40 Senators that stand for nothing. Some may tilt to the right on social issues, but it's not a well defined thing.

b) Among parties with no representation in Congress, there are some far-left parties (like PCB, PSTU and PCO). Now there's also NOVO, Brazil's first truly liberal party (fiscally conservative and socially liberal).

[Paleobrazilian]

I see Ciro Gomes has switched parties yet again, to the PDT. Amusingly, the same party as his Senator ex-wife. Did PROS stop existing?

No, it didn't. Ciro Gomes is the proof of why Brazil's multi-party system is broken. PDT is the seventh party of his political career. Remember, Ciro Gomes himself created PROS when he was unhappy that PSB wouldn't support Dilma's reelection. Then when the PDT offered him the possibility of running for President in 2018, he didn't think twice about making yet another switch.

By the way, here's what Ciro Gomes is up to over the last few weeks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKCbn4aOhDw

Your comment about Brazil's "broken party system" has made me curious. Could you answer these questions:

1) How many of the parties actually have coherent ideologies? Which ones?

2) I kind of get the appeal of PMDB, but why would one vote for one of the smaller non-ideological parties? (Clientelism, individual politicians?

3) How would you (or any of the other Brazilians) change the electoral system to fix the broken system?

2- IMO, there are 4 relevant factors. One of them is definitely the individualistic nature of Brazil's politics. That's just how things work in Brazil, people don't care about ideologies, they vote for personalities. Those non ideological parties have many "mythical" figures in Brazilian politics with, unfortunately, still attract a lot of votes. Of course, this happens mostly because, as you probably imagine, Brazil still has a very large number of voters with little or no education, who tend to vote on those "mythical" figures. But that's not the only cause.

There's also the proportional system of voting for the House of Representatives, because it increases fragmentation and helps those non ideological parties, that tend to form alliances with the major parties.

Third, it's important to remember that Brazil is a three tier Federation, composed by the Federal Government, 26 State Governments, Federal District's Government and over 5000 Municipal Governments. Some parties may stand for nothing relevant on the national picture, but may have a strong presence on State and Municipal politics. One interesting example that comes to my mind is PP in Rio Grande do Sul, where PP has been the leading figure on the right side for a long while, even though PP has been a loyal partner to PT on the national level. Another interesting example are the many rebel factions of PMDB that finally got the breakup they long dreamed of today. In important states like Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul, PMDB and PT have been bitter rivals for a long while. Thus, the fact that there's no correlation between national politics and local politics mean that a smaller, non ideological party may have a strong presence on a certain state.

Finally, there's the fact that EVERYONE in Brazil wants to be in government, to benefit from the perks of being in government (specially the ones being revealed on the Petrobras scandal we're witnessing right now). Non ideological parties are excellent for politicians that only want a big tent to be in government. As you see, Brazilian politicians care more about benefiting from the government than about any sort of ideology. It's just sad.

3- There are many reforms I'd like to see. Here are them:

a) The most important one for me is the creation of a performance clause like the one used by Germany's Bundestag. Unfortunately in 2006 the Supreme Court decided that a performance clause created a few years earlier violated the Constitution - it's widely considered one of the worst decisions the Supreme Court has ever made. If a new performance clause were approved by Congress today, I think the Supreme Court would uphold its constitutionality, but you never know.

b) On elections, local alliances should be the same as of national alliances. The fact that local alliances can be different from national ones causes fragmentation and take cohesion out of the system.

c) End the proportional system to elect Congressman. I'm in favor of a purely district system like the one used in the UK, but wouldn't be opposed to a system that combines district voting to proportional voting like the one from Germany.

d) Adopt a truly proportional division of Federal Congressmen between states. Under Brazil's Constitution, there's a floor of 8 Congressmen and a roof of 70 Congressmen a State can have. This leads to an aberration where a tiny State like Roraima has one Congressmen for each 60 thousand people, while in State with a large population like São Paulo there's one Congressmen for each 600 thousand people. Due to this rule, there's a significant democracy gap on the largest states, which are significantly underrepresented in the House of Representatives.

e) Force Legislators to resign their seats if they take an office on the Executive. It's common in Brazil the appointment of Legislators to cabinet positions in order to build political support among his peers. With those reforms, I think this problem would disappear, as no Legislator would make such a move unless he were appointed to a top cabinet position.

f) Term limits for Legislators. Plus, harder term limits for the Executive (limit politicians to 2 terms, absolute).

[Paleobrazilian]

According to rumors the impeachment vote on the floor of the House will take 3 days. There'll be long speeches and party leaders could have up to 1 hour to make their orientations. The final day of voting will probably be April 17th, as I said earlier. It's believed that Congressmen will be called to vote on an order that starts with Congressmen from Southern Brazil and ends with Congressmen from Northern Brazil. This is yet another strategy used by Eduardo Cunha to make things harder for Dilma - in States from the South and the Southeast a vast majority of Congressmen will vote for the impeachment. This would create a wave feeling that would make voting against the impeachment tough for Congressmen voting later.

[Paleobrazilian]

[Paleobrazilian]

So what happens if not only Dilma, but also Temer and Cunha are done for corruption?

If both Dilma and Temer fall, then the President of the House would provisionally take office until the special election is arranged (if they both fall before January 1st, 2017, it's a direct election, if this happens on January 1st, 2017 or later, it's an indirect election on an unicameral session of Congress). However, if the President of the House cannot take office, then the provisional President would be the 4th name on the line of succession, which is the President of the Senate, Renan Calheiros (PMDB/AL). The problem is that Calheiros is also involved with tons of corruption scandals and there's a big chance that he wouldn't be able to take office as well. Then the next in line would be the President of the Supreme Court. Right now it's Minister Ricardo Lewandowski (in Brazil, Supreme Court judges are called Ministers), but in September his 2 year term ends and Minister Carmen Lúcia will be elected as the new President of the Court by her peers (there's a long time tradition on Brazil's Supreme Court that the Ministers elect as their President the Minister who has served the longest time without being President).

[Paleobrazilian]

Poor Dilma. The Government was celebrating that the last 2 days were a little bit better for them and that their chances of blocking the impeachment were growing. But guess what: today, on a new plot twist, the Petrobras investigation has uncovered the link between PT and the murder of Celso Daniel, the biggest Pandora Box of Brazil's politics. Ouch.

BTW, the investigation has also shown how the Petrobras scandal and the Mensalão scandal were pretty much the same thing. This could be the Armageddon for PT.

[Paleobrazilian]

The government will present its defense on the impeachment commission today. Tomorrow, the rapporteur of the impeachment commission will present his report - which will likely be in favor of the impeachment. The non-binding report will probably be voted by the commission next Monday, where it'll likely be approved by a wide margin.

[Paleobrazilian]

Supreme Court Minister Marco Aurelio Mello has granted an injunction that will force the House to open impeachment proceedings against Michel Temer. I believe this injunction will be revoked in a few weeks when the whole Court will make its definitive ruling on the matter, but at least for now there are 2 impeachment proceedings going on: one against Dilma and one against Temer.

According to the rapporteur of Dilma's impeachment commission, his opinion will be presented to the commission tomorrow. Then the document will be discussed by the commission for 2 days, and after the discussion the commission will vote on it (likely next Monday). It's expected that the report will be in favor of Dilma's impeachment and that it'll easily pass the commission, submitting the matter to the floor of the House, where it'll probably be discussed on April 15th and 16th, and finally voted by the Congressmen on April 17th.

Dilma's/PT's strategy for the last few days has been what has been dubbed the "retail" method instead of the traditional "wholesale" method usually used in Brazil's politics. Thus, instead of negotiating with the parties, Dilma and PT are negotiating directly with undecided Congressmen (there are about 100-120 of them right now). The offers being made to them are unbelievably generous, including up to 1 million reais in pork barrel for each Congressman that votes against the impeachment and full control of powerful Ministries (such as Education, Health, Agriculture, etc) and State owned companies and banks. It's no surprise that some of them are now leaning against the impeachment. The offer they're getting is enormous and many of those Congressmen are irrelevant backbenchers (jokingly called "lower clergy" here in Brazil), who now have the chance of their life to get power and good$$$ from the federal government. As you can see, the only chance Dilma has to survive the impeachment proceedings against her is making the system even more corrupt than it already is.

The strategy of the opposition, meanwhile, has been to expose those against the impeachment on public places and social networks. Also, Congressmen from the opposition are threatening Congressmen implicated on the Petrobras scandal that vote against the impeachment with proceedings on the House ethics committee. It's important to remember that the party being most heavily courted by Dilma, PP, is by far the most implicated on the Petrobras scandal. PP has 50 Congressmen and over 30 of them have been hit by the scandal. If proceedings against them are opened on the ethics committee, I believe many of them would be ejected from the House. As you can see, the battle will get uglier and uglier each passing day.

[Paleobrazilian]

Things are getting absurd here in Brazil. Eduardo Cunha has said he will NOT obey the decision of Minister of Marco Aurelio Mello, because, according to him, the decision violates the separation of Powers and determines something the Constitution doesn't allow (impeachment proceedings against the Vice President). While I think he's correct on both points and that those arguments will soon prevail when the whole Supreme Court decides on the matter, it shows how fragile our institutions are right now when the Legislative and the Judiciary come at war about the impeachment of the second highest authority of the Executive.

Meanwhile, many legislators from both sides of the aisle have been talking about calling a new general election on October (when the local elections will take place). Some have talked about an amendment to the Constitution to call an election on October. Of course, this is nonsense, as Brazil is a presidential country and the term of the Chief of the Executive branch cannot be ended through a constitutional amendment. In fact, the same could be said about the term of the Legislators - Brazil has a presidential system, no one can dissolve Brazil's Congress. Such an amendment would be quickly struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

[Paleobrazilian]

Such an amendment would be quickly struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

Isn't a constitutional amendment by definition violate the current constitution? I would be pretty horrified by a Supreme Court that strikes down a constitutional amendment as unconstitutional.

I beg your pardon. There's an important detail that I should have mentioned. Brazil's Constitution has a system of eternity clauses similar to the one adopted by Germany's Basic Law. There are four fundamental principles of Brazil's Constitution that cannot be changed even through a constitutional amendment. One of them includes the basic principles of Brazil's electoral system.

[Paleobrazilian]

Yesterday, Congressman Jovair Arantes (PTB/GO) presented his report to the impeachment commission, where he recommended opening proceedings against Dilma on the Senate. The commission will vote his report on Monday, when it's expected to pass fairly easily. Then it'll be submitted to the floor of the House.

Over the last few days, the government seemed to gain some ground against the impeachment as offers to undecided voters got more and more aggressive. Those last 24 hours were largely unfavorable to it, though. The report presented yesterday was very tough on the government, even more than expected. Plus, today it was learned that executives from a large constructor called AG told and proved to the feds that their large donations to Dilma's campaign in 2014 were in fact generous bribes. IMO, it's now likely that the Superior Electoral Tribunal will vacate the results of the 2014 election due to this.

[Paleobrazilian]

The pro-impeachment report has easily passed the commission by a 38-27 margin. Now it'll be submitted to the floor of the House, where it'll be discussed on Friday and Saturday and voted Sunday.

Estadão has been keeping track of all Congressmen and Congresswomen, trying to predict what will happen on Sunday. According to them, there are 299 declared votes for the impeachment, 123 declared votes against the impeachment and 91 votes that are either undecided or still undeclared. 342 votes are necessary to allow the Senate to open proceedings against Dilma.

http://infograficos.estadao.com.br/politica/placar-do-impeachment/

[Paleobrazilian]

PP's Congressmen will announce they're leaving the government base today. PP has nearly 50 Congressmen, less than 10 of them will vote against the impeachment.

Dilma's support in Congress is quickly crumbling. Despair has already settled in within the government. Today Dilma made a speech where she called Temer a "conspirator". If the impeachment side doesn't commit unforced errors until Sunday, I believe there will be 342 votes against Dilma on the House.

[Paleobrazilian]

PP's Congressmen will announce they're leaving the government base today. PP has nearly 50 Congressmen, less than 10 of them will vote against the impeachment.

Dilma's support in Congress is quickly crumbling. Despair has already settled in within the government. Today Dilma made a speech where she called Temer a "conspirator". If the impeachment side doesn't commit unforced errors until Sunday, I believe there will be 342 votes against Dilma on the House.

In the end, PP's breakup was even worse than expected for the government. The whole party decided to leave the government and to position itself in favor of the impeachment. Now, Dilma's fate will most likely be decided by around 50 Congressmen from 2 parties: PR and PSD.