{"id":74670,"date":"2016-06-06T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=74670"},"modified":"2016-06-06T12:46:26","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T11:46:26","slug":"credibility-of-brazils-interim-president-collapses-as-he-receives-8-year-ban-on-running-for-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/06\/credibility-of-brazils-interim-president-collapses-as-he-receives-8-year-ban-on-running-for-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Credibility of Brazil\u2019s Interim President Collapses as He Receives 8-Year Ban on Running for Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

Para ler a vers\u00e3o desse artigo em Portugu\u00eas, clique aqui<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>

Photo: Agencia Estado\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>3 Jun 2016 – <\/em>It has been obvious from the start that a\u00a0core objective of the\u00a0impeachment of Brazil\u2019s elected president, Dilma Rousseff, was to empower the actual thieves in Brasilia and enable them to impede, obstruct, and ultimately kill the ongoing Car Wash investigation (as well as to impose a neoliberal agenda of privatization<\/a> and radical austerity<\/a>). A mere 20 days into the seizure of power by the corruption-implicated \u201cinterim\u201d President Michel Temer, overwhelming evidence has emerged proving that to be true: Already, two of the interim ministers in Temer\u2019s all-white-male cabinet<\/a>, including his anti-corruption minister, have been forced to resign<\/a> after the emergence of secret recordings showing them plotting to obstruct that\u00a0investigation (an investigation in which they, along with one-third of his cabinet, are personally implicated).<\/p>\n

\"nyttemer-1024x675<\/a><\/p>\n

But the oozing corruption of Temer\u2019s ministers has sometimes served to obscure his own. He, too, is implicated in several corruption investigations<\/a>.\u00a0And now, he has been formally convicted of violating election laws and, as punishment, is banned from running for any political office<\/em> for eight years. Yesterday, a regional election court in S\u00e3o Paulo, where he\u2019s from, issued a formal decree<\/a>\u00a0finding him guilty and declaring him \u201cineligible\u201d to run for any political office as a result of now having a \u201cdirty record\u201d in elections. Temer was found guilty\u00a0of spending his own funds on his campaign in excess of what the law permits.<\/p>\n

In the scope of the scheming, corruption, and illegality\u00a0from this interim government, Temer\u2019s law-breaking is not the most severe offense. But it potently symbolizes the anti-democratic scam that Brazilian elites have attempted to perpetrate. In the name of corruption, they have removed the country\u2019s democratically elected leader and replaced her with someone who \u2014 though not legally barred from being\u00a0installed<\/em> \u2014 is now barred for eight years from running for the office he wants to occupy.<\/p>\n

\"temerap-540x444<\/a><\/p>\n

Just weeks ago, Dilma\u2019s impeachment appeared inevitable. Brazil\u2019s oligarchical\u00a0media had effectively focused attention solely on her. But then, everyone started looking at who was engineering her impeachment, who would be empowered, what their motives were \u2014 and everything changed. Now her impeachment, though still likely, does not look nearly as inevitable: Last week, O Globo<\/em> reported<\/a> that two senators previously in favor were now re-considering in light of \u201cnew facts\u201d (the revealed tapes of Temer\u2019s ministers), and yesterday,\u00a0Folha<\/em> similarly reported<\/a> that numerous senators are considering changing their minds. Notably, Brazilian media outlets stopped publishing polling data about the public\u2019s views of Temer and Dilma\u2019s impeachment.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, opposition grows to this attack on democracy both domestically and internationally. Protests aimed at Temer are becoming increasingly large and intense<\/a>. Two dozen members of the British Parliament denounced impeachment as a coup<\/a>. Three dozen members of the European Parliament urged termination of trade negotiations<\/a> with Brazil\u2019s interim government on the ground that it lacks legitimacy. The anti-corruption group Transparency International announced it was terminating dialogue with the new government<\/a> until it purged corruption from its new ministries. The New York Times<\/em> this week, reporting on<\/a> the resignation of the anti-corruption minister only 20 days after he was installed, described it as \u201canother blow to a government that seems to limp from one scandal to the next just weeks after Mr. Temer replaced Dilma Rousseff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Demonstrators<\/a>

Demonstrators run amid a cloud of tear gas during a protest organized by the Homeless Workers Movement, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 1, 2016. Photo: Andre Penner\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

But perhaps nothing quite captures the dangerous farce that Brazilian elites are attempting to perpetrate like the fact that their chosen leader is now literally banned from running for the office into which he has been installed because he has been convicted of breaking the law. This isn\u2019t merely the destruction of democracy in the world\u2019s fifth most populous country, nor the imposition of an agenda of privatization and attacks on the poor for the benefit of international plutocrats. It\u2019s literally the empowerment of dirty, corrupt operators \u2014 outside of democratic norms \u2014 cynically undertaken in the name of combating corruption.<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

Last night at an event in Rio de Janeiro, I was asked \u2014 as I always am at such events \u2014 about possible U.S. involvement in the change of government. Here are\u00a0four minutes of my answer:<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-uVkRg3bHSE<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

Glenn Greenwald<\/a> – \u2709glenn.greenwald@theintercept.com<\/a> – @ggreenwald<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A mere 20 days into the seizure of power by the corruption-implicated \u201cinterim\u201d President Michel Temer, overwhelming evidence has emerged: Already, two of the interim ministers in his all-white-male cabinet, including his anti-corruption minister, have been forced to resign after the emergence of secret recordings showing them plotting to obstruct the ongoing Car Wash investigation (in which they, along with one-third of his cabinet, are personally implicated).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}