The Great Brazil Topic

[Simfan34]

Former Petrobras Director Reveals: Bribe Was Made To PT Treasurer

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http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2014/10/1530309-former-petrobras-director-reveals-bribe-made-to-workers-party-was-paid-to-its-treasurer-political-party-denies-it.shtml

[Simfan34]

Any chance?

Brazil: 10 good reasons to think the two-month-old government will go

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http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2015/02/25/brazil-10-good-reasons-to-think-the-two-month-old-government-will-go/

[Paleobrazilian]

Well, this thread deserves a large recap!

As you probably know, Dilma Rousseff (PT-RS) was barely reelected back in October 2014 after what was the tightest democratic election ever in Brazil's history. Most will remember the two-month roller coaster. More on the election here: https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=170116.0

Some will probably remember that as the election went by, Brazil's economy started to show unequivocal signs of weakness, with shrinking growth, rising inflation, a weakening currency and a federal budget out of control. The economic weakness was made worse by the fact that the financial market clearly chose Aecio Neves as its candidate, as the government was blamed for the results of a failed economic strategy adapted from 2011 onward.

Some will remember that during the election, Dilma emphatically said that there was nothing wrong with the economy, that inflation was under control and that no adjustments would be needed. She also attacked both Aecio Neves and Marina Silva strongly, claiming that they would go on with privatizations, restricting worker's rights, cutting government spending on social problems, etc.

Some will also remember that as the election went by, the largest corruption scandal in Brazil's history started to be blown wide open for everyone, as its whistleblowers started to tell the feds all they knew about a gigantic corruption scandal underway in Brazil largest state owned company, Petrobras. 2 days before the runoff, it was leaked that, according to one of the whistleblowers, both Lula and Dilma knew about the wrongdoing and did nothing to stop it.

Well, just one day after the election Dilma was forced to go on a full "etch a sketch" mode, recognizing the economy was not in its best state and that some sacrifice would be needed. Later that week, interest rates were increased to curb escalating inflation, and soon after Dilma announced Joaquim Levy, an orthodox economist who was part of Aecio Neves' staff as her finance minister. Levy was supposed to set forth a series of unpopular measures, such as raising taxes and restricting access to pensions, social security and unemployment benefits.

A few days later, Dilma was faced with a disaster in potential as it became clear that the federal government would run a deficit in 2014, falling well short of the budgetary target set forth by the 2014 budget. Since that would violate Brazil's balanced budget law, an impeachable offence, Dilma was forced to bargain with the Congress a change on the fiscal target before December 31st. The consequence was that Dilma lost a lot of leverage and political power.

Dilma took an even stronger hit when the new Congress was sworn in. The new Congress has a much less stable majority than the one Dilma worked with on her 1st term, specially in the House. To make things worse, Dilma tried to intervene on the race for the presidency of the House, as she tried to avoid the election of Eduardo Cunha (PMDB-RJ), one of the cunningest politicians in Brazil, a man she despises. She failed badly, Cunha was elected with ease and Dilma lost even more support in Congress.

Finally, the Petrobras scandal turns worse for the government each passing day. Right after the election, a large number of businessmen were arrested, all of them suspected of paying hefty bribes for politicians in exchange of highly profitable contracts with Petrobras. While some denied any wrongdoing and said they had nothing to tell the feds, some went rogue and started telling all they knew about the corruption scandal to the feds. This led to even more new info, deepening the investigations further. As things got bleaker, the government finally decided to sack Petrobras' president, Maria Graça Foster. The problem is, they chose a man with previous ethics concerns to replace her, scaring even more investors away from Petrobras. Remember, Petrobras last produced a valid balance sheet on the 2nd quarter of 2014.

As February came by, things started to get even worse for Dilma. First, Eduardo Cunha was sworn in as the President of the House, promising to act with independence from the Executive. From them on, things soured quickly. Dilma has angered the entire PMDB, that refuses to negotiate with the leading political negotiators of the federal government (including Dilma's Chief of Staff, Aluizio Mercadante). Things got nuclear when the Attorney General announced the name of the first politicians that will be investigated for involvement with the Petrobras scandal. The list contains the name of many PMDB barons, such as Eduardo Cunha and the President of the Senate, Renan Calheiros (PMDB-AL). Cunha and Calheiros claimed their names were on the list because the federal government asked the Attorney General to do so. As a reaction, they rallied the PMDB to make things even worse for Dilma in Congress.

Finally, the PT itself has been taking increasingly large hits. Renato Duque, a former director of Petrobras and a man known to be very close to José Dirceu was arrested late last year accused of involvement on the scandal. He was released just a few days later, but last Monday he was arrested again, as the Prosecution proved he was still laundering huge sums of money in Monaco. The latest findings show Duque was the man responsible for asking hefty bribes for the PT, bribes that were collected by a now infamous name, João Vaccari Neto, the treasurer of the PT. PT members are in panic that Duque may be desperate in prison, and that for this reason he may decide to tell what he knows to the feds. There's also increasing evidence that José Dirceu got millions from the corruption scheme, and that Dilma's 2010 presidential campaign was largely funded by bribes and laundered money. Finally, large PT names such as Senator Gleisi Hoffman (PT-PR), Senator Lindbergh Farias (PT-RJ) and Senator Humberto Costa (PT-PE) emerged on the AG's list of investigated politicians.

Notice the amount of times I said things "got worse" for Dilma. It just goes to tell you how bad things got for her. It's not surprising that the latest ratings of her government are on pair with the ones registered by Collor when impeachment proceedings against him started back in September 1992. The national rating is of 62% bad/awful ratings, and even on the Northeast, where Dilma had a landslide win back in October, over 50% of the voters now say her government is bad/awful.



Thus, with a economy expect to shrink nearly 1% this year (and I'm being optimistic), inflation getting closer to double digits, a melting currency, many broken promises and a gigantic corruption scandal that's getting closer and closer to the presidency, its no surprise that many want to boot Dilma out of overnment. That's why over 2 million people took the streets of hundreds of cities last Sunday, as you may have seen on TV or somewhere on internet. Those were the largest demonstrations in Brazil's recorded history, even larger than the redemocratization demonstrations back in the 80's.

Now, can Dilma be impeached? That's something I'll discuss tomorrow.

[Simfan34]

Great post! Also the latest Datafolha approval poll for Dilma produced the following result:

13% approve
62% disapprove

The Economist notes that Collor hit a peak 68% disapproval in 1992.

[Simfan34]

And here we go! (from non wacko-leftist sources)

Brazil can’t afford to ignore protesters when they’re calling for the military

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Interesting... they are still there.

[politicus]

How is the political breakdown in the officer corps? And would ordinary soldiers obey if ordered to participate in a coup?

[Simfan34]

I don't know. Let's get the Folha's perspective:

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The problem is the difficulty of getting something specific to impeach Dilma, getting a supermajority to  vote for impeachment, and you'd still have Temer as the next in line, and since he's in the PMBD it's nigh impossible for him to be impeached, and without him leaving the picture you are not going to be able to have snap elections- and all by the end of next year. If not, the Congress would elect one of their own to the presidency (which would include Aecio, but this Congress is hardly likely to do that).

Unlike Dilma, Collor had a limited political base in the Congress, being an outsider, so there wasn't any large constituency that stood to lose much by impeaching him. Getting rid of Dilma will likely be much harder. Which is why I suspect people are espousing these kind of ideas- "get the military to cut through the political mess (which is the cause of all this, anyway!), sack the Presidency and the Congress, and hold snap elections," in a few months... or so, following their "roadmap" (a word that should always raise alarm bells) for National Salvation and Order or whatever they'll call it. Maybe they'll even have a catchy song like in Thailand.

This is hardly likely- but I think that the probability of it happening is inversely related to the probability that Dilma could successfully impeached.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Everything is becoming more and more clear for 2018:


Fernando Collor/Paulo Maluf (Party of Sexgods): 96%
Aecio Neves/Random loser (PSDB): 2%
Aecio Neves' Clone/Randon loser (PMDB): 1%
Random loser/Random loser (PT): 1%

[Paleobrazilian]

For Dilma to be impeached, 2 things would be necessary:

1 - The legal aspect: the House cannot open impeachment proceedings against Dilma unless there's evidence that she committed an impeachable offence as the President of Brazil. Some conservative legal experts argue that failing to recognize the corruption in Petrobras is an impeachable offence, but that's not an opinion of consensus. If it's proven that Dilma knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it, though, that would be a crystal-clear impeachable offence.

2 - The political aspect: everyone is very cautious about an impeachment. The PSDB doesn't want to impeach Dilma and then be impeached in 2020, for example. They want to make sure the impeachment will only happen when there's solid evidence to do so and when Dilma's political support has truly collapsed. The PMDB (specially Eduardo Cunha) now rules the country, so they'll only impeach Dilma if/when she becomes disposable. Other situation parties will also try to suck as much as they can from the government before considering an impeachment. So far the only parties already pulling for the impeachment are 2 smaller opposition parties, DEM and SDD. Of course, this could suddenly change on April 12th, when the next anti-Dilma demonstrations will happen. If they're bigger than the ones from March 15th, then there's a strong chance the PMDB will pull the plug on this government and make Michel Temer the next president of Brazil.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

And here we go! (from non wacko-leftist sources)

Brazil can’t afford to ignore protesters when they’re calling for the military

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Interesting... they are still there.

Everyone calling for a repeat of the 1964 is automatically a vile piece of s**t.

[Paleobrazilian]

According to CNT/MDA, 60% of the voters want Dilma's impeachment.

[jaichind]

According to CNT/MDA, 60% of the voters want Dilma's impeachment.

The same poll put her approval rating at 19% and losing to Neves 55.7% vs 16.7% if there is a re-vote of the October 2014 election.  I am wondering if Dilma is now thinking she is better off losing that election back in October 2014.

[Paleobrazilian]

Dilma probably has no further electoral ambitions, so it's all about her legacy now.

Lula, meanwhile, wants to kill Dilma. Not only Dilma's political ineptitude hurt Lula's chances for 2018, but it's widely believed that something involving Lula directly will come to surface soon.

[Beet]

Wow, what a disaster. Even more so if there is a military coup in Latin America's largest economy...

[Simfan34]

48% of Brazilians support a coup if "corruption is bad"

http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2015/03/nearly-half-of-brazilians-support-coup-if-corruption-is-high-lapop/

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

The Latin American right continues its utter disdain for democracy.

[politicus]

The Latin American right continues its utter disdain for democracy.

Not a right wing thing:

"Interestingly, acceptance of military intervention does not only come from those who disapprove of the current government. Among those who perceive that Brazil's president is doing a “very good” or “good” job, 45.6 percent believe a coup is justified if corruption is high. That rises to 46.4 percent among those who evaluate the president's performance as “neither good nor bad” and tops out at 52.8 percent for those who give Rousseff a job approval rating of “bad” or “very bad.”"

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Odd.

[seb_pard]

The Latin American right continues its utter disdain for democracy.

[Paleobrazilian]

This has nothing to do with the right. In fact, the most beloved figure by Brazil's left, Getulio Vargas, was a dictator.

It's just that, sadly, democracy was never a priority in South America. When you talk to older/poorer people in places like Brazil, Chile, Argentina etc., they'll tell you they liked the "good old days" because those dictators "got things done".

[Lumine]

Sure, blame the evil Latin American right, because the Latin American left is obviously a permanent bastion of democracy, honesty and freedom.

When it comes to Latin America and authoritarism, it has very little to do with left or right wing.

[seb_pard]

Sure, blame the evil Latin American right, because the Latin American left is obviously a permanent bastion of democracy, honesty and freedom.

When it comes to Latin America and authoritarism, it has very little to do with left or right wing.

I don't agree with you, I believe that in Chile there's a clear difference between the left and the right in terms of authoritarianism and human rights.

Are you chilean?

[Lumine]

Sure, blame the evil Latin American right, because the Latin American left is obviously a permanent bastion of democracy, honesty and freedom.

When it comes to Latin America and authoritarianism, it has very little to do with left or right wing.

I don't agree with you, I believe that in Chile there's a clear difference between the left and the right in terms of authoritarianism and human rights.

Are you chilean?

Indeed, it's fascinating to find a fellow countrymen here, xD

Speaking in the broad sense of Latin America the main argument seems to be that because the left formed the opposition to most of the military dictatorships of the 60's, 70's and 80's they seem to be the side of democracy and human rights, a flawed view when you consider situations like the one Paleobrazilian pointed out. And furthermore, all you need is to point out to authoritarianism in Venezuela and Cuba, the recent scandals in Brazil, Argentina and Chile to name a few and remember other people like Vargas, Ibañez, Velasco Alvarado or some of the more infamous revolutionary movements to realize that the Latin American left of the 20th and 21st Century is far from the hero to the evil right.

Regarding Chile, I do concede to you that the aftermath of Pinochet's government did result in a right that was clearly more authoritarian that a good part of the left, which was evident during the 1990's. But twenty five years have passed since democracy returned to Chile, and leaving aside UDI and some of its more extreme elements most of the right has clearly embraced democracy, at least when it comes to RN, Amplitud and Evopoli. Furthermore, it's hard to take most of the left fully seriously when it comes to their human rights talking points when you don't see them too concerned about Venezuela or Cuba in the past. In a way it reminds me of when Honecker was embraced by many when he came here in 1993, because it showcases that double standard.

[Paleobrazilian]

The treasurer of the PT, mr. João Vaccari Neto, was arrested today. Another big blow for the government, and even bigger hits are expected for the next few days.

Meanwhile, the PSDB has asked a former Minister of Justice, Miguel Reale Junior, for a legal opinion about the viability of impeachment proceedings against Dilma.

[Paleobrazilian]

According to the federal Court of Audit, Dilma's government has breached Brazil's balanced budget law, an impeachable offence. I expect the PSDB to file impeachment proceedings against Dilma soon.