Brazil’s Congress: Acircus with its own clown
Fractured legislature seeks to oust leader, but many members also face accusations
BRASÍLIA, Brazil — One of Brazil’s longest-running spectacles features a dizzying array of characters whose theatrics appear on millions of television sets most nights.
The ever-changing cast of 594 includes suspects accused of murder and drug trafficking, aging former soccer players, a judo champion, a country music star and a collection of bearded men who have adopted roles as leaders of a women’s movement.
The cast even includes a clown who goes by the name Grumpy.
But these are not actors. They are the men and women who serve in the national legislature.
Democracy can be a mystifying, rough-and-tumble affair anywhere, but Brazil’s Congress has few equals. ‘Many distortions’
As the nation endures its worst political upheaval in a generation, the lawmakers orchestrating the ouster of President Dilma Rousseff — who was suspended on Thursday and faces an impeachment trial on charges of manipu- lating the budget — are coming under renewed scrutiny.
More than half of the members of Congress face legal challenges, from cases in auditing court involving public contracts to serious counts like kidnapping or murder, according to Transparency Brazil, a corruption monitoring group.
The figures under investigation include the president of the Senate and the new speaker of the lower house. Just this month, the previous speaker, an evangeli- cal Christian radio commentator fond of posting biblical verse on Twitter, was ejected to face trial on charges that he secreted as much as $40 million in bribes into Swiss bank accounts.
Many of the legislature’s problems stem from the generous rewards to be found in Brazil’s hydra-headed party system, an unwieldy collection of dozens of political organizations whose names and agendas often leave Brazilians scratching their heads.
There is the Party of the Bra- zilian Woman, for instance — a group whose elected members in Congress are all men.
“The electoral process allows many distortions,” said Suêd Haidar, the party’s founder and president. She sighed, acknowledging that many of the men who join have little interest in promoting women’s rights. Backroom deals
One of those who joined the party, Sen. Hélio José da Silva Lima, was accused of sexu- ally abusing a young niece last year, though charges were later dropped. “What would become of us men if there were no women by our side, to bring us joy and pleasure?” he was quoted as saying in the Brazilian news media when asked about his decision to join the women’s party.
The same public fury over endemic corruption and governmental mismanagement that helped drive Rousseff from power has long been directed at the cabal of politicians, most of them white men, whose penchant for backroom deals and self-enrichment has become part of Brazilian lore.
“The reputation of the political class in Brazil really can’t go any lower,” said Timothy Power, a professor of Brazilian studies at Oxford University.
“People compare the legislature to the ‘House of Cards,’ ” he said, referring to the Netflix political drama, “but I disagree. ‘House of Cards’ is actually more believable.”
With 28 parties holding seats, the Brazilian Congress is the world’s most fractured, according to Power. The runner-up, Indonesia’s legislature, has a third fewer parties.
“Brazil is not an outlier, it’s a freak,” said Gregory Michener, director of the public transparency program at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, a university in Rio de Janeiro.