Brazil
Senate votes 61-20 to impeach President Rousseff for breaking budget
laws
RT,
31
August, 2016
Nine
months of political paralysis in Brazil have come to an end after the
upper house of Brazil’s parliament decisively voted to strip Dilma
Rousseff of her presidency for budgetary violations committed during
her term.
Sixty-one
senators voted for the impeachment, with only 20 standing by the
president, who was suspended in May for manipulating data to conceal
the scale of economic problems that have piled up since she assumed
power five years ago.
Senado Federal
Veja como votaram os senadores
Senado mantém direito de Dilma de exercer função pública.
But
68-year-old Rousseff was handed a lifeline after the Senate voted not
to bar her from holding government office for the next eight years.
According to the constitution, an impeached president faces this ban
by default, but Chief Justice Ricardo Lewandowski, presiding over the
hearing, allowed a separate vote on the matter. Forty-two senators
voted in favor of Rousseff, and 36 against, with three abstentions.
Conservative
Vice-President Michel Temer, who has deputized for socialist Rousseff
since her de facto ouster three months ago, was sworn in as president
later on Wednesday, and will serve out the remaining two years of her
term.
Posse de Michel Temer como presidente da República será às 16h
True
to form, in her last speech Rousseff was defiant in the face of
accusations, and made a futile call on the senators to “vote for
democracy,” accusing her political opponents of staging a “coup.”
"Today's
legal farce removes me from the position I was elected to by the
people," Rousseff said in her personal blog after the
impeachment. "The will of 61 senators has replaced that of 54,5
million people who voted for me."
Rousseff’s
lawyer immediately said she would appeal the impeachment through the
Supreme Court.
"Right
now I will not say goodbye to you. I am certain I can say, 'See you
soon,'" Rousseff said to a gathering of her supporters in
capital Brasilia after the session.
Rousseff
- the country's first female leader - is also the first Brazilian
leader to be dismissed from office since 1992, when Fernando Collor
de Mello resigned before a final vote in his impeachment trial for
corruption.
Hard
road ahead for Temer
While
Rousseff’s budget-balancing tricks, which included delaying
government repayments to banks to underplay the deficit, are thought
to have also been used by her predecessors, the former guerrilla
fighter’s popularity has cratered: Brazil suffered six consecutive
quarters of negative growth and is mired in corruption scandals
implicating officials close to the outgoing president.
Nonetheless,
Rousseff’s ousting means a sea change for a country that was ruled
by the left-wing Workers’ Party for the past 13 years. Its
activists have been staging thousands-strong protests in support of
the deposed politician, and are expected to resume them following the
latest decision.
Meanwhile,
Temer, a 75-year-old career politician, who is ironically himself
barred from running for office due to electoral violations, faces an
uphill task.
His
financial reforms, reeling back from the lavish social spending of
Rousseff’s administration, have curried favor with investors, but
not the electorate, with his cabinet’s popularity ratings no higher
than those of his predecessor.
American
economic adviser David Riedel said that the country now had no chance
but to embrace economic reforms, in the wake of a fall of commodity
prices that led to the rise Rousseff, and her predecessor Luiz Inacio
Lula.
“International
investors will give Brazil the benefit of the doubt. So if they
become more business-friendly, and investor friendly, and cut back on
the profligate spending, which is an issue across South America,
investors will give Brazil a second look,” he told RT.
Temer
will also shoulder the difficult task of restoring Brazil’s
credibility abroad, which has suffered in recent months, after years
when the country was seen as the shining light of the continent’s
economy. Temer is due to travel to China to participate in the
upcoming G20 meeting in Hangzhou.
Sympathizers
at home and abroad express fury
Meanwhile
the government of longtime Rousseff ally Venezuela has already said
that it is freezing relations with Brazil and recalling its
ambassador following the impeachment. Ecuador and Bolivia have also
called back its top diplomats in Brasilia.
Several
experts interviewed by RT condemned proceedings, and claimed that
Wednesday’s decision would give rise to a new cycle of active
unrest.
“This
was not a real trial for Rousseff. Most of the senators had made up
their minds before, and there was no legal reason for the
prosecution” said Maria Mendonca, from the University of Rio de
Janeiro.
“She
is going to lead the process of what this government will do – so
expect something pretty Earth-shaking,” Francisco Domninguez from
the University of Middlesex. “Already there are protests on the
streets. The Landless Workers Movement, the large trade unions will
all come together, and this will be – in their eyes – a class
struggle.”
Brazil’s
Dilma Rousseff, a Woman of Honor, Confronts Senate of Scoundrels
Pepe
Escobar
31
August, 2016
Dilma
Rousseff entered the Senate and calmly stared down her accusers. She
left with her head held high after exhorting those Senators to vote
with their conscience.
Most of those politicians present probably had no idea what conscience means; they’re no more than corrupt messenger boys. But the Brazilian collective unconscious – Jung to the rescue – will be marked.
President
Dilma Rousseff, in a detailed, occasionally emotional speech,
defended herself with honor and dignity from accusations she
committed a “crime of responsibility”. She was not actually
facing a political cesspool, but that ‘Angel of History’ so
beloved by Walter Benjamin. History will judge her kindly.
Meanwhile,
it ain’t over till a dodgy politico sings. As I write, Rousseff is
on the way to be stripped from the presidency of the world’s 8th
largest economy by a bunch of scoundrel-cum-coward politicos. Her
only fear, she said, was the “death of democracy”. Rousseff’s
impeachment means in practice that democratic voting in one of the
world’s largest democracies will be cancelled by a parliamentary
coup remote-controlled by oligarchic interests. This is not, and
never was, about justice; it’s about dirty, nasty politics.
There
is no techno-bureaucrat argument whatsoever capable of proving the
President should be impeached because of state budget maneuvers that
did not yield a single cent for her pockets, or to the detriment of
the Treasury – and this in an astonishingly corruption-infested
nation.
If
we had to rely on a single formulation to explain this charade to a
global audience this should be it: The current
parliamentary/institutional/big business/big banking/corporate media
coup is the tool used by Brazilian oligarchs to smash the wealth
distribution drive that preceded, via President Lula, the US-provoked
global 2008 crisis of capitalism.
The
Lula and subsequent Dilma presidencies had adopted a very Chinese
“win-win” model. There was a sort of unwritten
pact between
social classes: The rich got even richer while the poor got less
poor.
But
then the crisis hit BRICS member Brazil with a vengeance. There was
no Plan B – apart from exporting commodities; the boom was over and
traitors/conspirators in the opposition saw an opening to reclaim
power on the wheels of the highly selective ‘Car Wash’ corruption
investigation. And yet, this being KafkaLand, the parliamentary
impeachment drive against Dilma is in fact a diversionary tactic
devised to “tame” Car
Wash, so it wouldn’t hit oligarch-controlled right-wing
politicians.
The
vultures and their master plan
Emir
Sader, one of Brazil’s top sociologists, has summed
up what
lies ahead: major social and political conflict; military/police
repression; tearing up of the social contract; the nation reduced to
a mere US vassal; an unelected, illegitimate government with no
autonomy, sovereignty and geopolitically sidelined. All the while
being “led” by
currently interim, and President-to-be Michel Temer, a mediocre,
corrupt coward who didn’t even have the balls to attend the
Olympics’ final ceremony because he knew he would be booed out of a
packed Maracana stadium.
Welcome
to post-coup Brazil: Land of permanent crisis, a powerless,
illegitimate, corrupt government, economic recession, and
unemployment. As Sader noted, “everything
positive that Brazil built this century will be thrown out by a
coup.”
Temer
the Usurper could never aspire to Shakespearean grandeur, as a tragic
figure. He’s already been connected to almost $3 million in
kickbacks. The current Foreign Minister, the despicable Jose Serra, a
Chevron asset, has been accused of receiving over $6 million,
including overseas.
Yet
further serious accusations would have targeted right-wing political
parties even harder – utter devastation extended to at least half
of Congress – until they were magically “disqualified” by
purposeful leaks. There’s the rub: in the current Kafkaesque set
up, only the “reds” –
as in the Workers’ Party – can be criminalized. Most of these
shenanigans will feature in at least four documentaries currently in
production about the sorry saga.
Immediately
after Dilma’s impeachment, the Senate plans to throw what literally
amounts to a fiscal party – based on raised salaries for Supreme
Court ministers; these salaries regulate the remuneration of all
Brazilian public service. Remember that Dilma is being accused
of“fiscal
irresponsibility”.
Many
scoundrels/vultures will be dividing the spoils of a dead democracy.
What matters is that the number one profiteer of impeachment will be
the Goddess of the Market. That also includes Big Business,
mainstream media (a monopoly of five families) and of course,
Exceptionalistan. Their mandate is clear. The presidency is just a
detail. What they need to control is the Finance Ministry and the
Central Bank.
Their
policies are ready to be implemented: smash the incipient Brazilian
welfare state; keep interest rates in the stratosphere; impose
a “fiscal
adjustment”;
and allow capital free flow. Things like this only actually happens
in certified dictatorships.
Now
they’ve got the power, the neoliberal ideology and all the
necessary political alliances to pull it off. Add to this a non-stop
offensive against the Workers’ Party as a means to counter-punch
the accusations against Temer the Usurper and his mediocre chancellor
Serra.
So
what’s next? The highly fragmented, hyper-conservative Congress
will circle their wagons against anything that threatens their
privileges. The Attorney General will hardly have the temerity to
really investigate Temer the Usurper and other politicians. Although
there is serious evidence of corruption against them all,the
impregnable juridical/political/police/media shield protecting the
scoundrel galaxy is astonishing. We are deep into protection of
organized crime territory.
Non-stop
back room deals are in progress as we speak. The only certainty ahead
is the assassination of democratic and constitutional rights and the
smashing of social programs.
As
I already detailed,
the master plan ahead is vicious, straight from disaster capitalism’s
playbook; selling out the pre-salt oil reserves to foreign, as in US
corporate, interests; selling out indigenous Brazilian industrial
development via hardcore privatization; abandoning the defense of
Brazilian engineering know-how; severe cuts on education, health,
science and technology; At the same time, there will
be“flexibilization” of
workers’ rights, as in attacking them on all fronts; a regressive
attack on pensions; and sabotaging Mercosur – the South American
common market – to the benefit of vassal subordination to US
interests.
In
the end, Rouseff will exit with her head held high. As for the Angel
of History, he will show the scoundrels no mercy.
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