Rousseff vote moves Brazil to right
As president’s suspension hands reins to Temer, leader vows to shore up economy
BRASILIA— Brazil’s once lauded model of leftist government appeared to come to an abrupt end Thursday, when lawmakers suspended President Dilma Rousseff in an extraordinary repudiation of her administration and the Workers’ Party that has ruled the country for 13 years. Vice-President Michel Temer quickly assumed control of Latin America’s largest country, signalling that he will take Brazil in a more free-market-friendly direction in an attempt to shore up its sagging economy and win over a skeptical public. Amember of the centrist PMDB party, Temer introduced a conservativeleaning, all-male cabinet Thursday that swings Brazil toward the right.
He called on Brazilians to trust in the country’s values and in the recovery of its economy, which is suffering its worst crisis in 80 years. “It is urgent to pacify our nation and unify Brazil,” he said.
Rousseff’s removal sent shock waves throughout Latin America, where Brazil was once viewed as an emerging economic power and the model for a new form of leftist rule, matching support for big business with muscular social-welfare programs to alleviate poverty and nurture a new middle class.
That project has come crashing down — and Rousseff paid the price Thursday. She faces impeachment proceedings that could last six months. An overwhelming vote against her in Brazil’s Senate indicated that she had little chance of being acquitted.
Rousseff, 68, is accused of improperly using billions of dollars in loans from government banks to fill budget shortfalls and pay for social programs. But the impeachment vote became a broader referendum on her leadership amid a painful recession and corruption scandals that have swept up much of the country’s political elite.
The country’s first female president vowed to fight the charges against her — raising the possibility of further political instability as Brazil stumbles toward the Aug. 5 opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Rousseff’s supporters called for strikes and demonstrations blocking roadways, but the sympathizers who gathered at the presidential palace Thursday appeared to number only in the hundreds.
A former leftist militant who was jailed and beaten as a young woman during Brazil’s military dictatorship, Rousseff called her suspension “an injustice more painful” than torture, blasting the impeachment vote as “fraudulent” and a “coup.”
Her defiant remarks came after a 20-hour debate that ended with 55 of Brazil’s 81 senators voting to put her on trial, far more than the simple majority needed.
Her accusers say Rousseff systematically obscured the precarious state of the country’s finances from lawmakers and the public to boost her re-election prospects in 2014 and conceal her mismanagement. The impeachment allegations cover only her present term, however.
Just hours after the vote, she insisted again that her predecessors had used the same bookkeeping tactics. “It was not a crime in their time. It’s not a crime in mine,” she said in a brief televised speech.
But her accusers say her accounting methods involved far greater sums.
Temer takes office with a weak government and mandate; recent polls showed that only 2 per cent of Brazilians wanted him to be president.
All of the 21 ministers Temer announced Thursday are men, a fact that will fan accusations of gender bias in the push to oust Rousseff, especially from backers of the Workers’ Party, which championed greater diversity in government.
In his first comments after the impeachment vote, Temer said he would focus on reviving the economy and would maintain popular social programs.
Temer also sought to give assurances that the Olympic Games will go off well, saying that billions of people would be watching and that Brazil could show itself at its best. “We will never get another opportunity like this,” he said.
Temer assumes the presidency on an interim basis, but he would serve out the rest of Rousseff’s term if she were found guilty.
Temer, 75, is a legal scholar and sometime poet who is famous for dapper suits, slicked-back silver hair and young wife Marcela, who will turn 33 on Monday.