Brazil In Turmoil: Jailed for corruption, ex-President Lula registered for presidency bid again

[Rod1]

No, the application of the law should be consistent.

It's like those cops that patrol bars and clubs on weekend evenings. They know damn well 90% of people driving are over the alcohol limit and therefore breaking the law. But they only stop the egregious drunks that are falling on their face or starting fights. Dilma had 3 drinks and is behaving civily but is being stopped because the cops don't like her.

This kind of mentality its the reason why latin america is a shithole.

There is a big difference between pragmatism (cant apply the law as it is to reality) and a pact of impunity.

 

[Islam Imamate]

I have question.

What qualifies as an impeachable offense in Brazil and what did Dilma do exactly that qualifies her for impeachment? I get that there is a massive corruption scandal concerning her party as well as the questionable decision to try and bring Lula on as her chief of staff in a mow that seemed motivated to protect him from investigation but what has been pinned on Dilma herself exactly?

 

[Rod1]

I have question.

What qualifies as an impeachable offense in Brazil and what did Dilma do exactly that qualifies her for impeachment? I get that there is a massive corruption scandal concerning her party as well as the questionable decision to try and bring Lula on as her chief of staff in a mow that seemed motivated to protect him from investigation but what has been pinned on Dilma herself exactly?

Broke fiscal laws.

 

[Islam Imamate]

Broke fiscal laws.

Does she have to be charged and convicted or is she tried in the court of public opinion?

 

[Rod1]

Does she have to be charged and convicted or is she tried in the court of public opinion?

No she doesnt has to be charged to be impeached, the joke is that the same thing they are impeaching her for, should be used against the opposition member who is trying to impeach for.

It seems that its basically good thing done by the wrong reasons. Yes, it is a soft coup, but no, that doesnt makes Roussef innocent.

Also it seems that the reason they are going for the fiscal law argument is because if they go for the illegal campaign financing or the petrobras scandal it would also smear those that are doing the impeachment since they are all involved.

 

[JadeOwl]

Does she have to be charged and convicted or is she tried in the court of public opinion?

This is the trial.

The two chambers of the Brazilian congress vote on whether there are enough reasons to put her on trial. If they vote Yes to that (like the lower chamber already did and their senate seems likely to) then the president is suspended for 6 months and the vice-president takes over.

During those 6 months the Senate will conduct the trial and if she is found guilty she will be removed from office permanently and the vice-president will serve the remainder of her term.

I hope I didn't miss anything.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

I have question.

What qualifies as an impeachable offense in Brazil and what did Dilma do exactly that qualifies her for impeachment? I get that there is a massive corruption scandal concerning her party as well as the questionable decision to try and bring Lula on as her chief of staff in a mow that seemed motivated to protect him from investigation but what has been pinned on Dilma herself exactly?

Watch the video I just posted. The reporter gives a great explanation.

Basically, she got government money and put it into the budget balance to make it look better. An accounting manipulation, pretty much. The guy talks about how the US treasury did something similar a couple of years ago when they changed the deadline as the Republicans threatened to default on debt.

Brazilian law allows for impeachment for "high crimes and misdemeanors." This minor thing is far from that.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

"A connection emerges"? Is it time to bring out the tin-foil hats already?

It's not even a secret that both sides are campaigning hard to shore up support from the outside world right now, as they should be.

So far the international community is quietly watching, and the first side that get someone - anyone - to speak up for them will score a major propaganda point.

Since the United States government is already officially taking a neutral stance in this internal affair, President Dilma is heading to New York to talk to the United Nation, while her opposition is sending their Senator Nunes to do the lobbying with legislators in Washington.

I have zero doubt the phones in Presidential offices all around South America are ringing off their hooks these past couple of days as well. Stay tuned for a wave of endorsements.

No, it's not a wash.

Rouseff is openly pleading her case to the initernational community of nations. The opposition is doing the same in secret with the world superpower. Surely you see the difference.

Also, as the guy in the video mentioned, just about all international observers are on Dilma's side. From publications like The New York Times, The Guardian, The Economist, to bodies like UNASUR and even the US-friendly OAS!

It's really right-wing Brazilians, maaaaybe the US, vs the rest of the world.

 

[Arkain2K]

The great betrayal
Dilma Rousseff has let her country down. But so has the entire political class
Apr 23rd 2016

BRAZIL’S Congress has witnessed some bizarre scenes in its time.

In 1963 a senator aimed a gun at his arch-enemy and killed another senator by mistake. In 1998 a crucial government bill failed when a congressman pushed the wrong button on his electronic voting device. But the spectacle in the lower house on April 17th surely counts among the oddest.

One by one, 511 deputies filed towards a crowded microphone and, in ten-second bursts broadcast to a rapt nation, voted on the impeachment of the president, Dilma Rousseff. Some were draped in Brazilian flags. One launched a confetti rocket. Many gushed dedications to their home towns, religions, pet causes—and even Brazil’s insurance brokers. The motion to forward charges against Ms Rousseff to the Senate for trial passed by 367 votes to 137, with seven abstentions.

The vote comes at a desperate time. Brazil is struggling with its worst recession since the 1930s. GDP is expected to shrink by 9% from the second quarter of 2014, when the recession started, to the end of this year. Inflation and the unemployment rate are both around 10%.

The failure is not only of Ms Rousseff’s making. The entire political class has let the country down through a mix of negligence and corruption. Brazil’s leaders will not win back the respect of its citizens or overcome the economy’s problems unless there is a thorough clean-up.

Ditching Dilma

Sunday’s vote was not the end of Ms Rousseff, but her departure cannot now be far off. Brazil ought not to mourn her. Incompetence in her first term in office, from 2011 to 2014, has made the country’s economic plight incomparably worse. Her Workers’ Party (PT) is a prime mover behind a gargantuan bribery scheme centred on Petrobras, the state-controlled oil company, which channelled money from contractors to politicians and parties. Although Ms Rousseff has not been personally implicated in the wrongdoing, she tried to shield her predecessor as president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from prosecution.

What is alarming is that those who are working for her removal are in many ways worse. If the Senate votes to put her on trial, probably by mid-May, Ms Rousseff will have to step aside for up to 180 days. The vice-president, Michel Temer, who comes from a different party, will take over and serve out her term if the Senate removes her from office (see article). Mr Temer may provide short-term economic relief. Unlike the hapless Ms Rousseff, he knows how to get things done in Brasília and his Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB) is friendlier to business than the PT.

But the PMDB is hopelessly compromised, too. One of its leaders is the speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, who presided over Sunday’s six-hour impeachment spectacle and has himself been charged by the supreme court with taking bribes through the Petrobras scheme. In announcing their “no” votes, some of Ms Rousseff’s allies denounced Mr Cunha as a “gangster” and a “thief”.

The taint of corruption is spread across many Brazilian parties. Of the 21 deputies under investigation in the Petrobras affair, 16 voted for Ms Rousseff’s impeachment. About 60% of congressmen face accusations of criminal wrongdoing.

There are no quick ways of putting this right. The roots of Brazil’s political dysfunction go back to the slave-based economy of the 19th century, to dictatorship in the 20th and to a flawed electoral system that both makes campaigns ruinously expensive and also shields politicians from account.

In the short run, impeachment will not fix this. The charge that is the basis for trying Ms Rousseff—that she manipulated accounts last year to make the fiscal deficit look smaller than it was—is so minor that just a handful of congressmen bothered to mention it in their ten-second tirades. If Ms Rousseff is ousted on a technicality, Mr Temer will struggle to be seen as a legitimate president by the large minority of Brazilians who still back Ms Rousseff.

In any other country, such a cocktail of economic decline and political conflict might be combustible. Yet Brazil has remarkable reserves of tolerance. Divided as they are over the rights and wrongs of impeachment, Brazilians have kept their anger in check. The past three decades suggest that theirs is a country which can endure a crisis without resorting to coups or collapses. And here, perhaps, is a shred of hope.

The fact that the Petrobras scandal has ensnared some of the country’s most powerful politicians and businessmen is a sign that some institutions, especially those that enforce the law, are maturing. One reason politicians are in such trouble is that a new, better-educated and more assertive middle class refused to put up with their impunity. Some of the statutes now being used to put away miscreants were enacted by Ms Rousseff’s government.

One way of capturing this spirit would be for the country to hold fresh elections. A new president might have a mandate to embark on reforms that have eluded governments for decades. Voters also deserve a chance to rid themselves of the entire corruption-infested Congress. Only new leaders and new legislators can undertake the fundamental reforms that Brazil needs, in particular an overhaul of the corruption-prone political system and of uncontrolled public spending, which pushes up debt and hobbles growth.

Second best

True enough, the path to renewal through the ballot box is strewn with obstacles. Given its record, Congress is unlikely to pass the constitutional amendment required to dissolve itself and hold an early general election. The electoral tribunal could order a new presidential ballot, on the ground that Petrobras bribe money helped finance the re-election of Ms Rousseff and Mr Temer in 2014. But that is far from certain.

There is thus a good chance that Brazil will be condemned to muddle on under the current generation of discredited leaders. Its voters should not forget this moment. Because, in the end, they will have a chance to go to the polls—and they should use it to vote for something better.

http://www.economist.com/news/leade...-so-has-entire-political-class-great-betrayal

 

[Toco]

The great betrayal
Dilma Rousseff has let her country down. But so has the entire political class
Apr 23rd 2016

BRAZIL’S Congress has witnessed some bizarre scenes in its time.

In 1963 a senator aimed a gun at his arch-enemy and killed another senator by mistake. In 1998 a crucial government bill failed when a congressman pushed the wrong button on his electronic voting device. But the spectacle in the lower house on April 17th surely counts among the oddest.

One by one, 511 deputies filed towards a crowded microphone and, in ten-second bursts broadcast to a rapt nation, voted on the impeachment of the president, Dilma Rousseff. Some were draped in Brazilian flags. One launched a confetti rocket. Many gushed dedications to their home towns, religions, pet causes—and even Brazil’s insurance brokers. The motion to forward charges against Ms Rousseff to the Senate for trial passed by 367 votes to 137, with seven abstentions.

The vote comes at a desperate time. Brazil is struggling with its worst recession since the 1930s. GDP is expected to shrink by 9% from the second quarter of 2014, when the recession started, to the end of this year. Inflation and the unemployment rate are both around 10%.

The failure is not only of Ms Rousseff’s making. The entire political class has let the country down through a mix of negligence and corruption. Brazil’s leaders will not win back the respect of its citizens or overcome the economy’s problems unless there is a thorough clean-up.

Spoiler

Ditching Dilma

Sunday’s vote was not the end of Ms Rousseff, but her departure cannot now be far off. Brazil ought not to mourn her. Incompetence in her first term in office, from 2011 to 2014, has made the country’s economic plight incomparably worse. Her Workers’ Party (PT) is a prime mover behind a gargantuan bribery scheme centred on Petrobras, the state-controlled oil company, which channelled money from contractors to politicians and parties. Although Ms Rousseff has not been personally implicated in the wrongdoing, she tried to shield her predecessor as president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from prosecution.

What is alarming is that those who are working for her removal are in many ways worse. If the Senate votes to put her on trial, probably by mid-May, Ms Rousseff will have to step aside for up to 180 days. The vice-president, Michel Temer, who comes from a different party, will take over and serve out her term if the Senate removes her from office (see article). Mr Temer may provide short-term economic relief. Unlike the hapless Ms Rousseff, he knows how to get things done in Brasília and his Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement (PMDB) is friendlier to business than the PT.

But the PMDB is hopelessly compromised, too. One of its leaders is the speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, who presided over Sunday’s six-hour impeachment spectacle and has himself been charged by the supreme court with taking bribes through the Petrobras scheme. In announcing their “no” votes, some of Ms Rousseff’s allies denounced Mr Cunha as a “gangster” and a “thief”.

The taint of corruption is spread across many Brazilian parties. Of the 21 deputies under investigation in the Petrobras affair, 16 voted for Ms Rousseff’s impeachment. About 60% of congressmen face accusations of criminal wrongdoing.

There are no quick ways of putting this right. The roots of Brazil’s political dysfunction go back to the slave-based economy of the 19th century, to dictatorship in the 20th and to a flawed electoral system that both makes campaigns ruinously expensive and also shields politicians from account.

In the short run, impeachment will not fix this. The charge that is the basis for trying Ms Rousseff—that she manipulated accounts last year to make the fiscal deficit look smaller than it was—is so minor that just a handful of congressmen bothered to mention it in their ten-second tirades. If Ms Rousseff is ousted on a technicality, Mr Temer will struggle to be seen as a legitimate president by the large minority of Brazilians who still back Ms Rousseff.

In any other country, such a cocktail of economic decline and political conflict might be combustible. Yet Brazil has remarkable reserves of tolerance. Divided as they are over the rights and wrongs of impeachment, Brazilians have kept their anger in check. The past three decades suggest that theirs is a country which can endure a crisis without resorting to coups or collapses. And here, perhaps, is a shred of hope.

The fact that the Petrobras scandal has ensnared some of the country’s most powerful politicians and businessmen is a sign that some institutions, especially those that enforce the law, are maturing. One reason politicians are in such trouble is that a new, better-educated and more assertive middle class refused to put up with their impunity. Some of the statutes now being used to put away miscreants were enacted by Ms Rousseff’s government.

One way of capturing this spirit would be for the country to hold fresh elections. A new president might have a mandate to embark on reforms that have eluded governments for decades. Voters also deserve a chance to rid themselves of the entire corruption-infested Congress. Only new leaders and new legislators can undertake the fundamental reforms that Brazil needs, in particular an overhaul of the corruption-prone political system and of uncontrolled public spending, which pushes up debt and hobbles growth.

Second best

True enough, the path to renewal through the ballot box is strewn with obstacles. Given its record, Congress is unlikely to pass the constitutional amendment required to dissolve itself and hold an early general election. The electoral tribunal could order a new presidential ballot, on the ground that Petrobras bribe money helped finance the re-election of Ms Rousseff and Mr Temer in 2014. But that is far from certain.

There is thus a good chance that Brazil will be condemned to muddle on under the current generation of discredited leaders. Its voters should not forget this moment. Because, in the end, they will have a chance to go to the polls—and they should use it to vote for something better.

http://www.economist.com/news/leade...-so-has-entire-political-class-great-betrayal

didnt understand this "large minority of brazilians who still back" the president. really, no one is backing her apart from a few in the country. its like 90% of the population claiming for her impeachment, its pretty huge. getting impeached she will at least will open up for other candidates that cant be worse than her (you would have to try hard). her vice president is trying to put great people behind the nation's economy, like henrique meirelles. he seems to have a way better idea on how to manage the country than dilma

theres really no coup at all. shes just getting impeached cause of her wrongdoings, and even if this one doesnt pass (it would be really hard not to right now), theres a ton others theres even more substantiated than this one right now, that covers all the corruption thats going on with her filthy government

 

[jemimaman]

.

 

[barillas]

The recession is because of commodity prices plummeting down, its was going to happen with any kind of government.

You don't know shit , you should get out of this discussion

 

[barillas]

It's like those cops that patrol bars and clubs on weekend evenings. They know damn well 90% of people driving are over the alcohol limit and therefore breaking the law. But they only stop the egregious drunks that are falling on their face or starting fights. Dilma had 3 drinks and is behaving civily but is being stopped because the cops don't like her.

It's more like Dilma and her gang are the ones who stole all the drinks from the bar and got everyone drunk with it.

 

[barillas]

No she doesnt has to be charged to be impeached, the joke is that the same thing they are impeaching her for, should be used against the opposition member who is trying to impeach for.

It seems that its basically good thing done by the wrong reasons. Yes, it is a soft coup, but no, that doesnt makes Roussef innocent.

Also it seems that the reason they are going for the fiscal law argument is because if they go for the illegal campaign financing or the petrobras scandal it would also smear those that are doing the impeachment since they are all involved.

It's not a coup you asshole, STFU you don't know shit, your opinion is so naive, blocked.

 

[Rod1]

You don't know shit , you should get out of this discussion

Are you kidding me? total brazilian exports in terms of value plummeted like 25% that threw the balance of payments down the shitter.

Instead of uniting against a common enemy (low commodity prices) political parties in Brazil are waiting this catastrophe to make their moves and gain power.

Shall i remind you that it was one of such commodity crisis what caused the left to rise in Brazil in the first place?

 

[Rod1]

It's not a coup you asshole, STFU you don't know shit, your opinion is so naive, blocked.

Why dont they charge her for illegal campaign finance? why dont they charge her for the kickbacks? Why do they go for the weakest cause whatsoever?

You are stupid and deserve whatever assfucking you get from the next government.

 

[barillas]

Yes the congress is full of shitty representatives, but one thing I don't see people talking about is about how much responsibility Dilma's gang, PT, had on establishing a "culture" of corruption over the congress. During their 14 YO reign, the PT party never wanted to share power with other parties, they thought they could eternally bribe those parties and keep them out of the decision-making table. PT helped to corrupt our culture a lot. They need to cease to exist, they're a cancer.

 

[barillas]

Why dont they charge her for illegal campaign finance? why dont they charge her for the kickbacks? Why do they go for the weakest cause whatsoever?

You are stupid and deserve whatever assfucking you get from the next government.

Your questions just show me that you don't know shit, do you live here? Do you read a lot about what's going down here? Stop with your presumptions because you're so out of tune with this conversation.

 

[SRN]

Why dont they charge her for illegal campaign finance? why dont they charge her for the kickbacks? Why do they go for the weakest cause whatsoever?

You are stupid and deserve whatever assfucking you get from the next government.

They just started gathering proves against her reelection campaign but it will take forever because it's Brazil. The impeachment process will be over sooner.

 

[barillas]

They just started gathering proves against her reelection campaign but it will take forever because it's Brazil.

We got plenty of legal reasons to impeach Dilma. That dumb guy say we chose the weakest reason to dethrone her. WHAT??? She defrauded more than 50 billion on the government's books, is that weak???