The people of Brazil confront the impeachment of their President for the second time in 25 years. It is always a traumatic event. What does it mean? Is it true that President Dilma Rousseff is under attack because our elite can’t stand a popular government, as the members of her Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, or PT) say? Or is it a constitutional and necessary step to get rid of a thoroughly corrupt government?
To answer that question we need to go back in time. When the PT’s most famous politician, Luís Inácio “Lula” da Silva, was elected in 2002 after three failed attempts, he changed his tune and image. From firebrand union organizer he became the Lula of “peace and love,” donning a coat and tie and promising, in an open letter to the Brazilian people, that he would govern as a pragmatist who would keep our institutions and market economy.
Indeed, he kept his promise initially, despite some measures aiming to control freedom of the press in Brazil. Lula kept up policies of the government that preceded him, that of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a social democrat allied with neoliberals. While Argentina defaulted on its international loans in 2001, Brazil paid off its IMF debt ahead of schedule. The Brazilian economy thrived with responsible people in command, such as Henrique Meirelles and PT veteran Antonio Palocci. We also had a great help from China and the low cost of capital in developed countries, that’s for sure.
During that time, however, the PT had been bribing members of Congress from several political parties to vote in support of Lula’s program. When the scandal known as “the mensalão” (a nickname referring to lawmakers’ monthly stipend of political payoffs) became public in 2005, Lula almost lost it all, but Brazil’s healthy GDP rescued him as did a weak political opposition. Finance Minister Palocci was accused of corruption and abuse of power, and resigned. But Lula was reelected, and beyond that, he was able to pass the mantle of leadership to his protégé in the PT, Dilma Rousseff.
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Rodrigo Constantino
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