New leader must keep up war on corruption
Dilma Rousseff, Brazilian president Why? Brazil’s new leader inherits a booming economy and a bloated, corrupt political system which is holding the country back.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is a hard act to follow. During the retired Brazilian president’s eight-year tenure, which ended last year, GDP soared. Giant offshore oil discoveries stripped Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela of its status as dominant South American oil producer. And the gap between rich and poor has narrowed more quickly than in Canada or any advanced economy.
Lula successor Dilma Rousseff, a 64-year-old economist, is determined to keep GDP growing at a rapid rate that already has seen Brazil eclipse Britain this year as the world’s sixth-largest economy. (Canada’s economy is about 80 per cent the size of Brazil’s.)
Her ambitious plans will also see heavy investment in education and health care and in a modernized infrastructure to make her vast country — the world’s fifth largest by area — more globally competitive. There will be more state support for enterprises like Embraer SA, chief rival to Montreal’s Bombardier Inc. in commuter jets.
And Brazil has an edge in alternative energy, having bested America in rejecting the false promise of ethanol as an alternative energy source, opting instead for more energy-rich agricultural feedstock.
The chief obstacle to progress for Rousseff is entrenched corruption, conspicuously in the 23 political parties with seats in the lower house of the Brazilian congress. Each demands patronage in return for passage of legislation.
Yet, as if taking her cue from Mexico’s all-out war on druglords, Rousseff — a less forgiving sort than Lula — has already sacked four cabinet officers over alleged ethical transgressions.
Like her 37 predecessors, Rousseff doesn’t need congressional assent for many key initiatives, including education, health care and infrastructure upgrading. Government policy has been the chief factor in Brazil’s improved living conditions.
Rousseff’s faxina (“housekeeping”) campaign for reforming public governance has gone over well with Brazilians. Her overt intolerance of public malfeasance has been a refreshing development for Brazilians, who learn with no small satisfaction about the abrupt departure of an incompetent or featherbedding cabinet minister or agency head.
This has Rousseff enjoying record-high approval ratings — even after a year in office, when the glow of novelty usually has faded. dolive@thestar.ca