{"id":77521,"date":"2016-08-15T12:00:10","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=77521"},"modified":"2016-08-15T13:04:50","modified_gmt":"2016-08-15T12:04:50","slug":"bernie-sanders-denounces-brazils-impeachment-as-undemocratic-calls-for-new-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/08\/bernie-sanders-denounces-brazils-impeachment-as-undemocratic-calls-for-new-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernie Sanders Denounces Brazil\u2019s Impeachment as Undemocratic, Calls for New Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo:<\/a>

Photo: Keith Srakocic\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

Leia em portugu\u00eas <\/u>\u27f6<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

9 Aug 2016 – <\/em>Vermont Senator\u00a0Bernie Sanders yesterday denounced in harsh terms the impeachment of Brazil\u2019s democratically elected president. As the Brazilian Senate heads toward a final vote later this month, Sanders described his position, set forth in\u00a0a statement posted on his Senate site<\/a>, as \u201ccalling on the United States to take a definitive stand against efforts to remove Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff from office.\u201d He added: \u201cTo many Brazilians and observers the controversial impeachment process more closely resembles a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"bernie<\/a><\/p>\n

Sanders also\u00a0condemned the unelected center-right coalition under Michel Temer that has seized power during Rousseff\u2019s suspension and is now trying to install themselves through 2018. \u201cAfter suspending Brazil\u2019s first female president on dubious grounds, without a mandate to govern,\u201d he said, \u201d the new interim government abolished the ministry of women, racial equality and human rights\u201d and \u201creplaced a diverse and representative administration with a cabinet made up entirely of white men.\u201d They are now attempting to implement radical policies that could never be democratically ratified: \u201cimpose austerity, increase privatization and install a far right-wing social agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders\u2019 statement comes as Brazil\u2019s elites \u2013 virtually unified in favor of Dilma\u2019s impeachment \u2013 have taken extraordinary (and almost comically futile) measures during the Olympics to hide from the domestic public, and the world, how deeply unpopular Temer is. Brazil\u2019s largest newspaper,\u00a0Folha de S\u00e3o Paulo<\/em>, last month was caught<\/a> manufacturing polling data when it claimed that 50% of Brazilians want him to stay (in fact, their own poll showed a large majority (62%)\u00a0want Temer out<\/em> and new elections held and the paper\u2019s Ombudsman harshly criticized them<\/a>). Brazilian media spent months hyping the prospect of Temer\u2019s election in 2018 without mentioning the rather significant fact that he\u2019s been banned by a court for running for 8 years<\/a> because he violated election law (they were forced to mention that last week when the S\u00e3o Paulo prosecutor called attention to this fact in the wake of\u00a0a new media movement to have Temer run).<\/p>\n

Temer himself, fearful of intense booing, demanded that protocol be broken<\/a>\u00a0by not announcing his presence at the opening ceremony of the Olympics (he was intensely booed anyway when Brazilians realized he was present). Peaceful ticket-holders have been systematically and at times forcibly removed<\/a> by Brazilian soldiers from Olympic events for holding \u201cFora Temer!\u201d (Temer Out) signs, creating international controversy<\/a>; watching the military use force to silence citizens criticizing an unelected \u201cpresident\u201d is a jarring image in a country that suffered under a 21-year military dictatorship that only ended in 1985 (a judge last night ruled such removals violate the Constitutional guarantee of free expression<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"bernie<\/a><\/p>\n

Sanders\u2019 denunciation of Temer could not come at a worse time for the would-be unelected President. Executives from the construction giant\u00a0at the heart\u00a0of the Petrobras scandal<\/a>, Odebrecht, told investigators this week that Temer\u2019s Foreign Minister, Jos\u00e9 Serra, received R$ 23 million<\/a> (US$ 5.5 million) in illegal funds for his 2010 presidential campaign. In just two months in office, three of Temer\u2019s ministers have been forced to resign due to corruption scandals. Even worse, as The New York Times\u00a0<\/em>noted yesterday<\/a>, Odebrecht executives also \u201ctold investigators that Mr. Temer [himself] had requested more than $3 million for his centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party. As part of a plea deal they are seeking, the Odebrecht executives said<\/a> the payment had been made in cash through a unit used to deliver bribes, according to Veja, a newsmagazine.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bit difficult to justify the removal of democratically elected President by citing corruption, when far more serious corruption scandals are engulfing the person eager to replace her\u00a0along with his closest associates. But that has been the sham\u00a0at the heart of this anti-democratic process from the start. As\u00a0Slate<\/em>\u2018s Franklin Foer put it in a long article<\/a> on Brazil yesterday: \u201cDilma\u2019s impeachment was a farce, if only for the fact that her accusers have benefited from graft on a mind-bending scale and ginned up the spectacle to distract from their own misdeeds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"bernie<\/a><\/p>\n

Sanders\u2019 denunciation of the attack on Brazilian democracy is part of a growing international recognition of the illegitimacy of Temer\u2019s rule. Just two weeks ago<\/a>, \u201c40 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives published a letter\u00a0\u2026 expressing \u2018deep concern\u2019 about threats to democracy in Brazil.\u201d Similar denunciations of Dilma\u2019s impeachment have been issued by British Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn<\/a>,\u00a0British MPs and labor leaders<\/a>, the Organization of American States<\/a>, dozens of members of the EU Parliament<\/a>, and Brazil\u2019s first Pulitzer Prize winner<\/a>. So dubious is Temer\u2019s standing that, as AP reported last month<\/a>, many world leaders are avoiding the Rio Olympics so as to avoid the quandary of whether to shake his hand.<\/p>\n

One question that arises\u00a0from Sanders\u2019 statement is timing: why, after months of silence on Brazil\u2019s political crisis, did he finally speak out now? One of the significant flaws of his candidacy was that he rarely addressed foreign policy at all, notwithstanding the fact that his primary opponent is a war advocate\u00a0and\u00a0militarist who (even long before Trump\u2019s emergence) was attracting neoconservative support<\/a>. He was a candidate steadfastly on message. Requests had been made for Sanders by his supporters to speak out on Brazil during the primary race, but those requests were rejected or ignored.<\/p>\n

When Sanders\u00a0did speak on foreign policy, it was to offer the mildest critiques, while endorsing many of the fundamentals\u00a0of the bipartisan War on Terror<\/a>. There were noble exceptions \u2013 some of his statements on Israel and Palestine were among the best<\/a> from any major party candidate in decades, and his refusal to repudiate some of his more controversial 1980s positions<\/a> when confronted with red-baiting was impressive\u00a0\u2013 but by and large, Sanders avoided any foreign policy views that could be castigated as left-wing or out of the mainstream.<\/p>\n

Now that his presidential campaign is over, he is free to speak out in ways that would not necessarily be politically beneficial in the eyes of\u00a0the\u00a0Democratic Party voter base. Some\u00a0of his most prominent supporters have been steadfast in their opposition to Dilma\u2019s impeachment. Whatever the explanations on timing, Sanders\u2019 statement is strong and unequivocal. Perhaps most significant is his call for the U.S. Government to \u201cdemand that this dispute be settled with democratic elections\u201d \u2013 the solution which a large majority of Brazilians also support\u00a0as the resolution to\u00a0their political crisis, but which the country\u2019s anti-democratic elites, fearful of who would be elected, vehemently\u00a0oppose.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________<\/p>\n

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

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

9 Aug 2016 – Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders yesterday denounced in harsh terms the impeachment of Brazil\u2019s democratically elected president. As the Brazilian Senate heads toward a final vote later this month, Sanders described his position as \u201ccalling on the United States to take a definitive stand against efforts to remove Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff from office.\u201d He added: \u201cTo many Brazilians and observers the controversial impeachment process more closely resembles a coup d\u2019\u00e9tat.\u201d<\/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-77521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77521","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=77521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}