At around 6:30 this morning, the senate voted to go ahead with the impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff. Vice-President Michel Temer will now be the interim president and all seems like an episode of House of Cards.
I have to confess that I have mixed feelings about it. Even though the country has been in dire straits, thanks to a series of bad decisions and political and economical instability, I still think this is not right.
So, the main argument for the impeachment is that the president committed what perhaps could be called “financial misconduct” involving public banks to mask gaps in government accounts and make it look like the house was in order just before the 2014 election. However, past governments have done the same thing, certainly not to the extent of this one, but nothing significantly consequential happened. I understand that past mismanagement should not justify the current one, but the double standard is clear here. Contrary to what happened in the past, the consequences this time were serious and contributed to a chaotic economy, and the opposition decided to do something about the ubiquitous maneuver. Still, the main argument seems weak to me.
Then there is Car Wash. The operation has been uncovering a huge bribery scandal involving politicians from many different parties, including the government, that received kickbacks from construction companies to secure contracts with them. And let’s not forget Petrobrás, with bribery and illicit activities that happened under Rousseff’s nose.
All of this contributed to the instability that the country is going through, and it’s affected millions of people. Even though the political discourse paints a picture that the current government has lifted millions from poverty, in reality it has been nothing more than an illusion. In her final speech before leaving Palácio do Planalto, she underscored the “achievements” in health and education, with gains to the poor and middle class. However, all we have seen in the last few years is a broken health system, where people who depend on it exclusively don’t get treated at all. Education has seen major cuts in several programs for college students. Also, even though for many years now the number of children and teens completing primary and secondary school has been going up, their real ability to read and do math is questionable, it’s as if we are okay with functional illiteracy. Inflation has rocketed, as well as taxes. Unemployment has gone up, over 1.5 million people lost their jobs in 2015 alone (including one of my students, he was laid off last year and guess what? He never paid me for classes he had in October and November. I’m still trying to contact him, but unsuccessfully… I also lost many other students because they needed to cut costs. A terrible ripple effect.) And who suffers the most with all this turmoil? The very people she claims have benefited from her policies, the poor and the middle class.
Despite all the mess that has happened under her watch, I still think this isn’t a legit move. Even though I truly believe she has her share of guilt in the political scandal, a belief isn’t evidence of wrongdoing, all the plea deals (delação premiada) are just their word against hers. She isn’t even being investigated in the operation Car Wash, but for sure this is the real reason she is being impeached, not the fiscal misconduct. It’s as if I worked in a store and have seen people steal clothes, and perhaps have stolen some myself. PERHAPS. Nobody has seen anything, but there is a suspicion. Some people don’t like me at the store and decide to get rid of me. Instead of firing me for stealing, because it can’t be proven, they decide to let me go because I haven’t folded the clothes properly, something that everybody else has done before.
I am struggling to make ends meet with the current situation of the country, I want things to turn around just like anyone else, but I am worried about how we are getting there.
I believe the biggest mistake Rousseff has made was to help divide the country with the political discourse of “us against them” instead of trying to unite the country. She got re-elected in 2014, but barely, which means that almost half of the people that voted for a candidate didn’t vote for her (we shouldn’t forget that around 7 million people just voted blank or annulled their vote), so there are a lot of angry and disillusioned people out there. She also struck out when she remained in the shadows when the crisis was at its highest last year. She didn’t come forward to talk about the crisis and justify her decisions. Instead, she chose to hide behind her cabinet and sent them to do the dirty work. When you are a leader, you have to be able to engage with people and be fearless. There will always be people who won’t like you, but you cannot be intimidated by it; if there is the tiniest amount of doubt, you shouldn’t run for office.
And the saddest part is that after all this, I am very skeptical that Temer will be able to pull it off. After today’s voting at the senate, where the votes for the impeachment added up to 55 (more than two-thirds), it looks like she might not return to office and we will have to be stuck with president Temer until 2018. One can only hope that things start to pick up soon, but it’s incredibly difficult to do so.
Frank Underwood would feel right at home.
-- Never too many beers -- 