Games over, Rousseff faces high jump
She calls them ‘‘parasites’’ and compares them to the duplicitous senators of ancient Rome she read about in a book by the classicist Mary Beard. And this week Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, is facing impeachment by those parasites – her country’s senators.
Rousseff, 68, goes on trial before the Senate in Brasilia, the capital, on Thursday, accused of illegal accounting to cover up a US$15 billion (NZ$20.6B) hole in the budget.
It’s a brutal return to reality for Brazil, which has spent the past few weeks distracted by the challenge of hosting the world’s biggest sporting event. Now, as international sports stars and spectators fly home from the Olympics, the country must get back to dealing with its biggest political and economic crisis for decades – compounded by the largest corruption scandal in Latin America.
Instead of presiding over the Games, Rousseff has been forced to watch them from the gleaming white presidential palace, where she has been staying with her mother and aunt while awaiting trial.
Suspended from office in May shortly after lighting the Olympic torch, she was allowed to stay on in the Alvorada Palace until the end of the trial. She spends her days meeting her legal team, her mornings cycling around the gardens and her evenings reading Beard’s SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome.
Rousseff stands accused not of stealing for personal gain but of manipulating Brazil’s budget and borrowing from state banks to cover up the scale of the economic crisis.
‘‘She said everything was fine, when the country was completely broke,’’ said Carlos Pereira, professor of political science at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Rio. ‘‘She lied to the population to get re-elected and plunged the country into complete chaos with unemployment, inflation and recession.’’
It’s a sad comedown for the former leftist guerrilla, who was elected on a platform of helping the poor and once enjoyed popularity ratings of 80 per cent. At the palace, her fresh flowers and other perks have been stopped and one of her employees even had the presidential credit card declined at a supermarket.
Last week Brazil’s Supreme Court announced it was also investigating Rousseff for obstruction of justice in the ‘‘Lava Jato’’ (car wash) corruption scandal, Brazil’s biggest yet.
Involving a massive kickback and bribery scheme, under which Petrobras, the state oil giant, allegedly inflated contracts and passed on cash to fund political parties, the scandal has ensnared key figures in Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, including her predecessor as president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Rousseff has been replaced temporarily by the vice-president, Michel Temer, of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, which is also caught up in the scandal.
Rousseff has insisted she will prevail. Last week on her Facebook page she offered to hold fresh elections if she were returned to office.
‘‘I’m asking the senators not to carry out an injustice and condemn me for a crime I did not commit,’’ she said.
Most think she will be gone within weeks.
‘‘Impeachment is a done deal – there’s no way back,’’ said Pereira. ‘‘The sooner the politicians resolve the situation, the better.’’