To watch the political theatre now unfolding in Brazil is to behold a country licked by discontent and scandal. An economy that had already been drifting for years is now in recession and inflation is on the rise. Dilma Rousseff, narrowly re-elected to the presidency late last year, has had little choice but to renege on campaign promises and resort to harsh austerity.
While spending cuts are a necessary corrective to the fiscal complacency of her first term, many accuse Rousseff of deception. They are embittered, too, by allegations of multibillion dollar kickbacks connected to Petrobras. No evidence has emerged to implicate Rousseff, who, as minister of mines and energy, headed the Brazilian state-owned oil company’s board of directors when much of the corruption is said to have occurred. Still, large crowds of protesters gathered across the country last month, calling for her to be impeached.
Brazil is one of the few democracies to have removed a sitting president before (Fernando Collor was turfed out of office in 1992). Lawmakers may be tempted to unsheathe their daggers once again. As recently as December, fewer than a quarter of Brazilians disapproved of Rousseff’s administration. Now the figure is over half.
That has emboldened Rousseff’s coalition partners. They are threatening to blunt the government’s programme of fiscal readjustment, and that is not the limit to the mischief they can make. The bar to impeachment is low; “lack of decorum” is a sufficient legal reason. If the government gets its way, declining living standards will make the president even less popular.
Still, the outcome of these political theatrics is far from preordained. Rousseff has undertaken a process of economic readjustment that many in the establishment consider necessary. They may calculate that it is better for her to remain in office for as long as she can govern. Even the opposition is against impeachment, preferring Rousseff’s Workers’ Party (PT) to stay to the bitter end. As one respected opposition senator put it: “Let her bleed.”
After 12 years in power, the PT, which was founded by trade union and industrial labour leaders in 1980, seems to have come to the end of the historical cycle typical of social democratic parties. They tend to emerge from revolutionary or extra-parliamentary movements, develop a reformist bent when in power, only to become increasingly corrupt the longer they remain there.
Nonetheless, there have been positive outcomes. Between 2003 and 2011, the administration of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva combined sensible economic management with effective poverty-reduction measures — though it also had the benefit of a commodity boom. Da Silva wisely limited himself to two terms, endorsing Rousseff’s candidacy in 2010, even when his popularity may have tempted him to try for a constitutional amendment that would have allowed him to run again.
The PT has been so successful in reducing poverty that it has created legions of middle-class voters who tend to resent paying too much tax. That is another stabilising factor; popular feeling is moving to the right at roughly the same pace as the administration.
However brutal the denouement of Rousseff’s tenure, it is unlikely to do lasting damage to the institutional stage on which it unfolds. Brazilian stability rests on a long tradition of conciliation. No one wants the volcano of social inequality to start spitting lava. A readiness to compromise may be called both the nation’s main virtue and its sin.
Still, none of this means that Rousseff’s future is safe. She will require great assurance if she is to push ahead with unpopular readjustment measures in the midst of protests. Her mandate ends in 2018. If she is to stay in office until then, she must hope for a sharp improvement in Brazil’s fortunes.
— Financial Times
Otavio Frias Filho is editorial director of the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo.