Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

The Political Interests Behind Brazilian President’s Impeachment

In early December, an impeachment process was opened against President Dilma Rouseff, the current President of Brazil and member of the Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores-PT). Here are some basic facts that everyone should know about the impeachment process, the PT, and recent events in Brazil.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

December 30, 2015
Facebook Twitter Share

Photo: Esquerda Diário

First and foremost, despite being called the Workers Party (PT) and despite the US media constantly referring to the PT as a “leftist party”, the PT’s policies demonstrate that it is neither leftist nor willing to fight for the working class. The PT has held executive power for 13 years now and during times of economic prosperity—the early 2000’s—certainly expanded meager welfare systems, public education, vastly expanded private education, and made credit more easily accessible to the Brazilian people. The economic conditions allowed the PT to help create jobs, although many of those jobs were minimum wage, subcontracted jobs—the most precarious kind of labor. During the years of economic prosperity, the wealthy expanded their profits exponentially. The PT governed in a way that allowed the rich to become much richer, while the working class was given some meager advances in living conditions.

Now, the economic situation in Brazil has changed. Due to the drop in prices for raw commodities, the loss of key subsidies, and the Petrobras corruption scandal, Brazil’s economy has plummeted, making it clear to the population whose side the PT government is on. The PT has instituted a series of cuts and neoliberal measures, from pension cuts to cuts in education and health care funding, to further privatization of the partially nationalized oil company, Petrobras. The PT’s policy is clearly that the working class must pay for the economic crisis—instead of the large companies and corporate leaders.

In 2014, President Dilma Rouseff won the election very narrowly, with just 51 percent of the vote. Today’s Congress is one of the most conservative in recent history, with a rightwing President of the House of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). The PMDB, a center-right party, has always made alliances with the PT and for most of PT’s 13 years in office. It has governed alongside Rouseff and her predecessor, President Lula. Now, the PT fears the conservative monster it helped create during years of deals and alliances with the PMDB.

Cunha has been at the front of major attacks on oppressed people and workers—supporting further restrictions on abortion and reducing the age of adulthood so that 16 year olds can be tried as adults (although the PT has not offered any true alternative to these plans).

Central to the impeachment effort is the corruption scandal that has touched all major political parties. Corruption within the crown jewel of the Brazilian economy, Petrobras, was discovered in early 2014 and the ongoing investigation has uncovered the participation of almost all major Brazilian political parties, including the PT and the PMDB. Cunha of the PMDB is directly involved in the corruption scandal: millions were found in his Swiss bank accounts.

This money in Swiss bank accounts created a quid pro quo among Cunha and Dilma. The PT held off from bringing a vote to investigate Eduardo Cunha in the Ethics Committee in the Chamber of Deputies. Cunha, on his part, did not bring forward a vote for the impeachment of Dilma. On December 3, the PT decided to change their position, opening an investigation on Eduardo Cunha. On the same day, Cunha decided to open the impeachment process against President Dilma.

It is clear to most Brazilians that this impeachment is purely a chess match between two parties of big business, although it has gained support among many Brazilians who are unhappy with the PT government. The formal reason for the impeachment is not having followed a fiscal responsibility law and using government money to make unauthorized loans to state banks. Yet, this is a law that has not been followed by several current mayors and governors who have not been scrutinized, much less impeached. It is clear that impeaching President Dilma is not about loans to state banks, but rather retribution for the PT’s investigation on Cunha as well as massive public disapproval of Dilma’s governance.

Opening the process against Cunha would clearly bring about the impeachment of Dilma, so why did the PT do it? Some think it is because the Dilma government has suffered so many political attacks that it was better to stop defending her and prepare for the elections in 2018. It is more likely however, that the PT calculated that it was too politically costly not to go after Cunha, as the whole country knows about the corruption scandal. Furthermore, it is very difficult to impeach a President because a two-thirds majority is needed.

This political gamble on the part of the PT has thus far proven to be accurate. Due to decisions made by the Supreme Court, the impeachment process has been slowed and is likely to not go through. On Thursday, December 17, the Supreme Court ruled that the while the Chamber of Deputies has the authority to bring impeachment proceedings, the President can only be ousted by a majority in the Senate.

This makes the impeachment of President Dilma much more unlikely, as the PT has strong political alliances in the Senate and the majority needed to impeach her, would most probably not materialize.

Furthermore, Eduardo Cunha, the chief spokesperson for the opposition, has increasingly become an unviable spokesperson for impeachment due to his own involvement in the Petrobras corruption scandal. In fact, the Attorney General solicited that the Supreme Court remove Cunha from his post as President of the Chamber of Deputies.

The impeachment process has mobilized PT’s base and allies into strong shows of strength. On December 16, there were protests against the impeachment and in favor of “democracy” with 100,000 people gathered in cities across the country. PT-allied labor unions and social movements helped mobilize many of these people.

This protest comes after a year of right-wing protests demanding the impeachment of the President. One demonstration reached upwards of a million people in Brazil, but have since been losing steam. On December 15, the smallest right-wing protests of the year took place with 70,000 people taking to the streets across the country.

As this political theater plays out, the Brazilian economy is tanking; hospitals are closing due to lack of funds, public sector workers are going without their wages, workers are being laid off and huge cuts to education are being made. This political theater, of supposed opposition between Dilma and Cunha hides a key fact—both Dilma and Cunha, and both the PT and the PMDB are united in their belief that austerity measures are needed and that workers should pay for the economic crisis Brazil.

For this reason, workers should not support the Dilma administration. Why fight to maintain the administration that will cut workers’ benefits and public services? Why fight to maintain a government that will make sure that the wealthy continue to reap huge profits while the working class scrapes to get by? However, workers cannot support the rightwing impeachment efforts either, as the right wing will continue the PT’s austerity measures.

It is necessary to build a real workers’ alternative that is, neither with the PT nor the right wing. This alternative must be forged in current anti-austerity struggles and the struggles that are to come. These fight backs against austerity—workers movements and student movements should be united in order to become stronger and understand the crisis as systemic, not as an ephemeral problem suffered by one group of workers.

We also must address the increasing public questioning of the privileges of the elite political caste. So many politicians and political parties have been involved in the Petrobras corruption scandal that it makes it obvious to the public that politicians are corrupt and govern for their own benefit. In order to build on these broad public concerns, workers must impose a constituent assembly to question entire political regime and draft a new constitution; for a short time, the assembly would serve as legislative and executive, creating new rules for government and expressing the public’s concerns about corruption and political privileges. This will not come about without working class and youth imposing a constituent assembly, which questions the executive, legislative political regimes- one in which the working class can debate a way for the rich to pay for the current economic crisis rather than continuing to profit off of it.

Facebook Twitter Share

Tatiana Cozzarelli

Tatiana is a former middle school teacher and current Urban Education PhD student at CUNY.

Latin America

Alfredo Cisneros, Mexican land defender from Michoacán, stands in a forest. He is the fifth land defender to be murdered in the country in 2023.

Alfredo Cisneros: Fifth Mexican Environmentalist Assassinated in 2023

Alfredo Cisneros Madrigal, indigenous leader and forest defender in Michoacán, Mexico was murdered on February 23. He is the fifth environmental defender to be murdered in the country so far this year.

Axomalli Villanueva

March 13, 2023

Lula Visits Biden to Repair Relations with U.S. Imperialism

Brazilian President Lula's U.S. visit shows that he's focused on maintaining the interests of Brazilian capital while aligning with U.S. imperialism and being careful not to alienate Beijing.

Caio Reis

February 16, 2023

SOUTHCOM Chief Aims to Increase Imperialist Plunder of Latin America’s Resources

U.S. Southern Command Chief Laura Richardson has expressed interest in lithium and other natural resources in South America. It shows the country’s commitment to corporate profits at the expense of workers, Indigenous people, and the environment.

Luigi Morris

January 26, 2023

The Peruvian Uprising: Massive Protests Demand the Fall of the Coup Regime and a Constituent Assembly

Peru has erupted in a massive uprising demanding that President Dina Boluarte resign, that the current Congress be shut down, and that a new constitution be established. The protests are the culmination of years of political oppression of the country’s indigenous communities, drastic poverty rates and precarity for Peru’s workers and poor, and a political regime that continues the legacy of Alberto Fujimori’s dictatorship.

MOST RECENT

Despite Threats of Arrest, Refinery Workers in France Refuse to Break Strike

As energy strikes continue, France is faced with a kerosene shortage that’s creating an urgent situation at the country’s airports. With capitalist profits on the line, the government has attempted to force Normandy refinery workers back to work through an anti-strike legal weapon called requisitions. In their first victory, refinery workers forced the police to withdraw in an incredible demonstration of solidarity.

Nathan Erderof

March 24, 2023

“We Need Action Committees Everywhere”: Building the General Strike in France

Workers across France are organizing action committees to build a general strike to take down the Macron government and the Fifth Republic.

Arthur Nicola

March 24, 2023

What’s Behind Xi Jinping’s Visit to Moscow?

Chinese president Xi Jinping has visited Moscow for the first time since the beginning of the Ukraine war, in an effort to strengthen trade relations between the two countries.

Madeleine Freeman

March 23, 2023
Protesters gather during a demonstration on Place de la Concorde in Paris on March 17, 2023, the day after the French government pushed a pensions reform using the article 49.3 of the constitution. - French President's government on March 17, 2023 faced no-confidence motions in parliament and intensified protests after imposing a contentious pension reform without a vote in the lower house. Across France, fresh protests erupted in the latest show of popular opposition to the bill since mid-January.

Battle of the Pensions: Toward a Pre-Revolutionary Moment in France

President Macron's use of article 49.3 to push through an unpopular pension reform bill has opened up an enormous political crisis that has changed the character of the mobilizations against the French government. We are entering a "pre-revolutionary moment" that can change the balance of power between the classes in France.

Juan Chingo

March 21, 2023