The dismissal of now ex-president Dilma Rousseff brings to a close a turbulent chapter of Brazil’s crisis, but does nothing to clear up the doubts that threaten the political system and the economy of Latin America’s powerhouse.
An era of mega-events and mega-projects is coming to a close in Brazil with the Olympic Games to be hosted Aug. 5-21 by Rio de Janeiro. But the country’s taste for massive construction undertakings helped fuel the economic and political crisis that has it in its grip.
Ironically, the only two economists who have served as president of Brazil are also the only ones impeached for economic failures.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff would appear to be, as she herself recently said, “a card out of the deck” of those in power, after the crushing defeat she suffered Sunday Apr. 17 in the lower house of Congress, which voted to impeach her. But Brazil’s political crisis is so complex that the final outcome is not a given.
The aim to impeach President Dilma Rousseff is no longer merely a threat that was poisoning politics in Brazil. Now it may be a traumatic battle, but in the light of day.
As the political situation in Brazil appears to be reaching a state of unstable equilibrium, or more bluntly, as it is transformed from instability to impasse, the economy continues to deteriorate.
Megaprojects are high-risk bets. They can shore up the government that brought them to fruition, but they can also ruin its image and undermine its power – and in the case of Brazil the balance is leaning dangerously towards the latter.
This month’s World Economic Outlook
released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) only confirms that consequences of the collapse of the financial system, which started six years ago, are serious. And they are accentuated by the aging of the population, not only in Europe but also in Asia, the slowing of productivity and weak private investment.
Even moderately well-informed analysts knew that the Brazilian economy was in dire straits as President Dilma Rousseff initiated her second term in office in January.
"I have lost all meaning in life after the death of my child, I will never forgive anyone who caused the tearing apart of his little body. I appeal to all who can help and stand with us to achieve justice and punish those who killed my child."
In Brazil, one of the countries with the highest concentration of land ownership in the world, some 200,000 peasant farmers still have no plot of their own to farm – a problem that the first administration of President Dilma Rousseff did little to resolve.
“If I had to choose today I would stay back home, I wouldn’t come to look for work here,” said Josefa Gomes, who 30 years ago moved from Serra Redonda, a small town in Brazil’s semiarid northeast, to the city of Rio de Janeiro, 2,400 km away.
The tight race between incumbent President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil’s Workers’ Party and her opponent, Aecio Neves from the centre-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) party, ended on Sunday, Oct. 26 with the re-election of Rousseff.
The dream of electing Brazil’s first black president, an environmental activist from the Amazon jungle, lasted only 40 days and was frustrated in Sunday’s elections. In the end, it is the two parties that have dominated Brazilian politics for the last 20 years that will face off in the second round of voting on Oct. 26.
The Sixth BRICS Summit which ended Wednesday in Fortaleza, Brazil, attracted more attention than any other such gathering in the alliance’s short history, and not just from its own members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The controversy is on: the authorities in Brazil say there are not enough medical professionals, and to resolve the problem, they decided to import this “non-traditional product”. Doctors, on the other hand, are opposed to both the diagnosis and the treatment. But there is one thing everyone agrees on: the areas suffering from a shortage of health professionals are the poor suburbs and impoverished areas in the hinterland and remote border areas. The situation in Brazil as compared to itself and to other countries can be seen in this series of interactive maps and graphs.
The decisions taken by the Brazilian government in the fight against drought in the country’s semiarid Northeast are an example of the disconnect between politicians and the citizens, which triggered an unexpected wave of protests in June.
The leaders of South America's Mercosur trade bloc decided to set up a committee to facilitate the incorporation of new members, adopt a mechanism to defend democracy in case of a coup, and ban vessels from the Malvinas/Falkland Islands from docking in member countries' ports.