Brazil in the grip of unseen powers

By Sebastián Lacunza
Editor-in-Chief

As in many democracies regained after a pact with the outgoing dictatorship, Brazil’s political life has been held in the grip of powerful interest groups. As happens in any democracy but slightly more in this case.
The Workers’ Party (PT) tried but could not advance in its efforts to take the crimes committed during 21 years of military rule to court.
By 2014 Dilma Rousseff had managed to make public a valuable report produced by the Truth Commission but Brazil is still a country where the military top brass can unabashedly defy and threaten the elected government.
In periods of the electoral campaign, Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff encouraged the idea of approving a media law based on anti-monopolistic principles, like those passed in Argentina (2009) and Uruguay (2014). That was not possible either. Even at its peak, the PT controlled only 20 percent of the Chamber of Deputies. In Brazil, there are dozens of television channels, radio stations and rightwing political holdovers from the dictatorship (DEM at their head). At the moment of truth both Lula and Dilma preferred to cut a deal with the all-powerful Globo. If a PT congress drafted a statement in favour of “informational democracy,” the mainstream media showered insults like “Marxists” on the government..
Many of the Sao Paulo industrial élite turned their backs on the PT some while ago. The declared objective of the Sao Paulo Industrial Federation (FIESP) is a free trade agreement with the United States. They feel they can play in the First Division although they do not represent sectors which sell major value-added products (for example, to Argentina) and which have a vulnerable position on the domestic market. In the eyes of the FIESP, Mercosur as a customs union is a deadweight. The current Foreign Minister José Serra (twice a presidential candidate) is a prime exponent of that view. For Serra, not winning elections is a soluble detail.
There are other strangleholds. One Brazilian peculiarity is the power of the evangelical churches, which stigmatize homosexuality and any attempt at progress towards civil rights.
With all of the above (right-wing factions nostalgic for military rule, local strongmen, the FIESP, Globo, Protestants, the financial powers, etc.) the PT sealed co-existence pacts from time to time. Realpolitik, they call it. The other side of the coin was that Lula gave rise to an extraordinary social mobility, much of it by raising the minimum wage. That is not a minor detail. Around 100 million Brazilians or half the population live in homes whose main income (whether a pension, an actual job or a social welfare plan) is pegged to the wage floor. Thanks to the Bolsa Familia, millions of families in the impoverished Northeast found out that the state had something to offer beyond tough policing.
Four key elements in the saga climaxing yesterday:
I - The governments of Lula and Dilma and the PT party executive were plagued with cases of corruption. When bribery raises its ugly head, it does not distinguish between financing campaign travel and rallies and the personal enrichment of the intermediaries. Any politician aiming even tamely at redistribution should be ready for the corresponding backlash.
II - Rousseff undermined her own authority as soon as she was re-elected in 2014. As a politician on the campaign trial, she warned everybody about the austerity measures her conservative rival would implement. Once confirmed in office, the president herself introduced massive cuts including some that even affected her party’s social achievements.
III - Those heading the ouster of the Brazilian president have a long history of embezzlement, both past and present. Their exasperating lack of moral legitimacy is only equalled by their exasperating lack of electoral legitimacy.
IV - The argument of “fiscal juggling” which served to remove Dilma Rousseff is a shameless short cut which none of the pathetic speeches of the deputies and senators could even elaborate in any way.
Measured against coups d’état with tanks in the street, mass arrests and democratic presidents removed by force, the events in Brazil cannot be defined in those terms. Michel Temer reached power after following all the formal steps required by the Constitution to remove a president. One detail. Since a trial for corruption would leave Rousseff much better placed than Temer himself or either of the Congress speakers, her accusers preferred to invent an excuse.
If the question is semantic, there are options — neo-coup, set-up, parliamentary manoeuvre, etc. At the same semantic level, who would dare to say that Brazil is a real democracy? An already undermined acting president now has to redistribute income in favour of the wealthiest in an adverse international scenario (both politically and economically). Unemployment is on the rise and housing programmes are being downsized. Temer’s Brazil is debating whether to ban demonstrations against the president. This story is not over.
@sebalacunza