Brazil’s Temer ‘set to survive latest threat’
HE MAY be Brazil’s most unpopular president in decades and charged with serious crimes, but Michel Temer, the ultimate teflon leader, is expected to breeze through a congressional vote on whether he should stand trial.
In Portuguese, Temer means “to be afraid”, but the canny 77-year-old veteran of Brasilia’s notoriously corrupt political scene appears to be full of confidence ahead of today’s vote.
The first president to face criminal charges while in office, Temer is accused of obstruction of justice and racketeering. He denies wrongdoing and has argued the country needs him at the helm to bring in market-friendly reforms after two years of recession.
A two-thirds majority is required in the lower house of Congress to have his case sent to the Supreme Court. Just as occurred in August when Congress threw out another charge, his allies are expected to reject the idea.
Constitutional law professor Daniel Vargas is not surprised.
“Temer is a professional in politics. He knows how to use the machine and to find the necessary support,” Vargas said.
Ironically, what makes it easier for Temer is that many of those judging him – 185 of the 513 deputies – are themselves targets of corruption probes. The mentality among those scandal-plagued politicians is clear, Vargas said.
“Temer represents the survival of the old guard. If he falls, who’ll be next?”
Critics say the president is also boosting his chances of survival through blatant vote buying, opening up the budgetary purse to give congress members the projects back in their home states that will help their own causes.
But there’s risk for deputies who decide to shore up Temer.
He has record low ratings, with only 3 percent considering his government “good” or “very good”, according to the latest opinion poll in September.
General elections are scheduled for October 2018 and the mood, analysts say, is deeply anti-establishment. However, for Temer, the situation is different, since he is not going to run.
After taking over the presidency in controversial circumstances following impeachment of his leftist predecessor Dilma Rousseff last year, he has never had any illusions about his popularity.
The centre-right leader from the PMDB party says that he’s there to make the difficult decisions needed to bring discipline and growth back to Latin America’s biggest, but floundering economy.
At the same time, the opposition is fragmented and ordinary Brazilians seem too exhausted to bother repeating the huge demonstrations that were common against Rousseff.
“Without pressure from the streets [and] in the absence of a real opposition alternative, the Congress will not go against Temer,” Vargas said.
The reforms have also endeared Temer to the markets and politically powerful lobbies, like the agricultural industry bloc which counts some 200 deputies in the lower chamber.
“Without the support of the markets, Temer would fall in a week,” Queiroz said. “He’s become their tool.”