[WSMDiscuss] Brazil in movement… : Fwd: Brazil update: huge street protests after Temer corruption intensifies / Protesting Austerity, Brazil's Workers to Shut Down Cities in General Strike June 30th

[JS CACIM]

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Brazil in movement…

Protesting Austerity, Brazil's Workers to Shut Down Cities in General Strike June 30th

Report by Brazilian Police Ties Michel Temer to Bribery Scheme <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=7YOcQr0Fv3DyKqnOombvFAguynUVZxQI>
Dom Phillips, New York Times

Brazil Senate Committee Rejects Labor Bill in Blow to Temer <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=SGqf7EymnnTNOOYhwAtJ%2B0zyiFWXV1hy>
Samy Adghirni  and Mario Sergio Lima, Bloomberg

Brazilians Fight for Democracy, Right-Wing Elites Clench Power

            Thanks for this great coverage, Patrick !

            JS

fwd

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: Patrick Bond <pbond at mail.ngo.za>
> Subject: [Debate-List] Re: (Fwd) Brazil update: huge street protests after Temer corruption intensifies
> Date: June 21, 2017 at 10:25:31 AM EDT
> To: DEBATE <debate-list at fahamu.org>, "safis-solidarity-platform at googlegroups.com" <safis-solidarity-platform at googlegroups.com>
> Reply-To: pbond at mail.ngo.za

(Michel Temer is having just as serious problems as Donald Trump and Jacob Zuma. The corruption probe is deepening, his austerity programme was just stalled, and another massive general strike looms late next week. Excellent!) 

News <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/section/news> > Latin America <http://www.telesurtv.net/SubSecciones/en/news/latinaamerica/>

Protesting Austerity, Brazil's Workers to Shut Down Cities in General Strike June 30th

Published 7 June 2017

The measures proposed by the unelected administration of President Temer would raise the minimum age to collect pension to 65 years.
The headquarters of Brazil's trade unions have issued a call for a new general strike to shut down Brazil's largest cities on June 30, to protest neoliberal labor and retirement pension reforms, as well as demand the resignation of unelected president Michel Temer <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazils-Temer-Could-Lose-Power-as-Fraud-Accusations-Pile-Up-20170606-0006.html> who is currently embroiled in corruption controversies <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazil-Arrests-Another-Temer-Ally-in-World-Cup-Corruption-Probe-20170606-0014.html>.

RELATED:
Lula Would Win Brazil Presidency If Elections Were Today: Poll <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Lula-Would-Win-Brazil-Presidency-If-Elections-Were-Today-Poll-20170606-0032.html>
“If the National Congress resolves to vote on the reforms, we will move forward with the mobilizations. We will not allow them to vote against the will of the Brazilian people,” the secretary of the Central Worker's Union (CUT) Sergio Nobre said.

In addition to the CUT, the General Confederation of Workers of Brazil, the Central of the Brazilian Trade Unions, the Trade Union and Popular Confederation, the Central of the Workers and Workers of Brazil, the Força Sindical, the Central Intersindical of the Working Class , The New Central Union of Central Public Employees of the Server, and the General Union of Workers have also announced participation in the strike.

The austerity measures proposed by Temer would raise the minimum age to retire and collect pension to 65 years. While international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have supported Temer's neoliberal policies <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/As-Brazil-Faces-Crisis-IMF-Suggests-Neoliberal-Austerity-20170519-0020.html> as being conducive to economic growth, the policies have been widely protested and condemned as harmful to the interests of the poor and working classes.

The proposal also comes in the midst of a massive wave of layoffs. Unemployment has reached a record high of 13.6%, or 14 million Brazilians without jobs.

In late April, over 35 million Brazilians <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/35-Million-Strong-Stike-Against-Temers-Neoliberal-Reforms-Brings-Brazil-to-a-Halt-20170427-0028.html> participated in a general strike called by CUT to protest the economic austerity of Temer.

In the midst of the growing discontent directed at neoliberal policy proposals, new waves of protests against the unelected leader, who only took power after what some call a parliamentary coup to remove former President Dilma Rousseff, began after recorded evidence showed Temer approving bribes.

In one of the audio tapes, the Temer can be heard giving authorization to former JBS executive Joesley Batista to pay US$637,000 to purchase the silence of Eduardo Cunha, the former president of the Chamber of Deputies regarding a corruption scandal.

***

Report by Brazilian Police Ties Michel Temer to Bribery Scheme <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=7YOcQr0Fv3DyKqnOombvFAguynUVZxQI>
DOM PHILLIPS. New York Times. JUNE 20, 2017

RIO DE JANEIRO - President Michel Temer of Brazil probably benefited from a bribery scheme aimed at helping a conglomerate with a business project, according to a preliminary Federal Police report released on Tuesday that has already intensified pressure on the beleaguered leader as he struggles to push austerity measures through Congress amid a political crisis.

"The president being accused by the police of corruption is bad anywhere in the world," said Carlos Melo, a professor of political science at the Insper business school in São Paulo. "It is a dangerous moment."

The preliminary report, written by an officer of the Federal Police, Brazil's equivalent of the F.B.I., and made available by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, examined wiretaps, testimony and other evidence from executives of the food giant JBS, who have agreed to a plea bargain with prosecutors.

It said that "conclusions should be drawn about the payment of undue advantages" to Rodrigo Rocha Loures, a close aide to the president and former lawmaker who was jailed after being filmed taking delivery of a suitcase containing more than $100,000, and also indirectly to Mr. Temer.

The latest scandal to befall Mr. Temer, who became president after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff last year, unfolded in May when O Globo, a newspaper, reported that the president had been caught on tape appearing to endorse efforts to obstruct a corruption investigation.

The secret recording was made by Joesley Batista, an heir to the JBS empire, during a late night meeting at the president's residence in Brasília. During the conversation, Mr. Temer indicated that Mr. Batista should deal with Mr. Loures for help with his company's problems.

The report said that after the meeting, Mr. Loures then intervened with a government antitrust body to help resolve a problem that a power plant owned by J&F Investments, the holding company that controls JBS, was having getting gas supplied by Petrobras, Brazil's state-run oil company. The suitcase of money was the first of a series of weekly payments, the report added. It asked for more time to continue investigating other elements of the conversation.

If Brazil's prosecutor general decides to indict Mr. Temer, a two-thirds majority in the lower house of Congress needs to approve the indictment. If the Supreme Court confirms that decision, he will be suspended for up to 180 days.

Rafael Cortez, a political analyst and partner at Tendências, a consultancy in São Paulo, said Mr. Temer probably has just enough support in Congress to block the indictment, but that may not last long. "The signs of the government's low political capital are becoming visible," he said.

Mr. Temer, who traveled to Russia on Tuesday, has repeatedly and vociferously denied all allegations against him. His lawyer, Antônio Mariz, dismissed the report. "The Federal Police report has no technical nor juridical value as an element of accusation," Mr. Mariz said in a statement.

Last week, after Mr. Batista accused the president in a magazine interview of being the "boss of a criminal organization," the president retorted that Mr. Batista was a "notorious bandit."

Mr. Temer attacked the lax terms of Mr. Batista's plea bargain, saying he had been given 300 months to pay back the billions he earned from corruption at subsidized interest rates.

Mr. Cortez said the real danger for Brazil was that Mr. Temer's ambitious economic program, including an overhaul of the country's generous pensions system, was in jeopardy. Financial markets see the changes as essential to restoring Brazil's economic credibility, but they are strongly opposed by labor unions.

Mr. Temer's legal troubles are the latest in a series of scandals that began in 2014 when the police unveiled a multibillion-dollar graft scheme at Petrobras. Many of Brazil's leading politicians and businessmen have been caught up in the investigations, and some are now in prison.

Fury over corruption helped bring about Ms. Rousseff's impeachment, ostensibly for breaking budget rules. But since Mr. Temer assumed office, accusations of wrongdoing have been repeatedly leveled at his government and investigations have been approved into eight members of his cabinet.

***


Brazil Senate Committee Rejects Labor Bill in Blow to Temer <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=SGqf7EymnnTNOOYhwAtJ%2B0zyiFWXV1hy>
Samy Adghirni  and Mario Sergio Lima. Bloomberg. June 20, 2017

A Brazilian Senate committee rejected a government-sponsored bill aimed at loosening decades-old labor laws in a blow to the country's already embattled President Michel Temer.

The Senate's Social Affairs Committee on Tuesday rejected the proposal, which prioritizes direct negotiations between workers and employers over existing labor regulations, with ten votes against and nine in favor. The decision sent Brazil's benchmark stock exchange lower as the real plunged to a one-month low before paring some of the losses.

While the vote does not kill the bill, it signals the fragility of Temer's political base. The president is struggling to maintain legislative support and advance an ambitious market-friendly reform agenda amid allegations of corruption and obstruction of justice. The proposal, which also relaxes the rules for holidays and overtime, now goes to the upper house's Constitution and Justice Committee, then to a plenary session. A preliminary survey by Arko Advice found that 15 of the committee's members are in favor of the bill, ten against and two are undecided, according to a tweet by Thiago de Aragao, a partner at the political consultancy.

The government remains certain it has the votes to push through the legislation. "It will be approved in a floor vote easily," Temer said to reporters in Russia, where the president is on an official visit. "What matters is the plenary."

Eliseu Padilha, the administration's chief of staff, told Bloomberg the defeat was a minor setback, but that the result would eventually be reversed.

Confident of victory in the committee, the Temer administration miscalculated the number of lawmakers opposed to the bill in attendance, according to a person involved in the government's legislative strategy who requested to remain anonymous because the information isn't public.

"The result is very bad," said Andre Cesar, a Brasilia-based independent political analyst. "The vote shows government weakness at a time when it is badly in need of good news. Temer will need to make even more concessions to secure its approval."

Supporters of the labor bill, which passed the lower house in April, say it would help generate jobs and reduce labor disputes, while critics say it would weaken workers' rights.

"The government isn't going to be able to approve anything," said Senator Lindbergh Farias, leader of the opposition Workers' Party in the upper house. "The bill is discredited as it heads to the Constitution and Justice Committee."

On 2017/05/29 06:11 AM, Patrick Bond wrote:
> (I've been in Brazil since Tuesday and it's delightful to see Temer squirm. Last October his Pretoria Embassy hacks wrote a stiff-necked letter of complaint <http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/d070bb004eb7964bb502bdc17c6e412d/Brazilian-Embassy-responds-to-BRICS-criticism-20162410> to several news outlets when my critique <https://theconversation.com/brics-struggles-to-fashion-coherent-action-due-to-inconsistent-agendas-66997> of the Goa BRICS summit mentioned his corrupt proclivities. And in Sao Paulo, I did a talk on Thursday, and if anyone wants the 9-meg slide show, let me know offlist...)
> 
> 
> Brazilians Fight for Democracy, Right-Wing Elites Clench Power
> 
> People attend a protest against Brazil's President Michel Temer in Rio de Janeiro, May 28, 2017. | Photo: Reuters
> Published 28 May 2017 
>  
> The vast majority of Brazilians favor direct elections to choose a new president — a route the country's elites want to avoid.
> Thousands of Brazilians took to the streets Sunday in Rio de Janeiro against the scandal-plagued government of unelected President Michel Temer to demand fresh general elections to choose a new president. But the majority of lawmakers in Brasilia continue to back indirect elections that would see Temer’s successor picked by a vote in the conservative-dominated and corruption-ridden <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/multimedia/Corruption-in-Brazil-20170416-0018.html> Congress.
> RELATED: 
> Brazilian Musicians to Play Rio for Free, Democratic Elections <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazilian-Musicians-to-Play-Rio-for-Free-Democratic-Elections-20170527-0021.html>
> “Out with Temer” and “Direct elections now” were among the most popular slogans as demonstrators began to gather at Rio’s Copacabana Beach around 11:00 a.m. local time, Brazil's O Globo reported. 
> The march, which was followed by a free concert with a number of popular Brazilian musicians <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazilian-Musicians-to-Play-Rio-for-Free-Democratic-Elections-20170527-0021.html> under the banner "Rio for Our Rights Now," came on the heels a series of demonstrations pushing for the resignation of the president and early elections to fill the top office ahead of the scheduled 2018 ballot.
> The latest wave of protests <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Out-Temer-Elections-Now-New-Round-of-Protests-Hit-Brazil-20170521-0015.html> was sparked by the release of an explosive wiretap that caught Temer on tape apparently endorsing bribes to keep a powerful witness — former speaker of the lower house and chief mastermind behind the ouster of former President Dilma Rousseff, Eduardo Cunha — from testifying in government corruption cases.  
> In the thick of the fallout from the scandal, Temer’s already deeply unpopular government sparked sharp criticism last week, including from some of his own allies, with a move to deploy the military to crack down on anti-government protests in Brasilia. The decree, which gave soldiers police powers to quash the demonstrations, was swiftly revoked the following day <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazils-Temer-Govt-Revokes-Army-Deployment-Decree-Amid-Outrage-20170525-0011.html> amid widespread outrage.
> Meanwhile, as speculation abounds about who could fill Temer’s shoes if he is eventually forced to step down or removed from office through one of the pending court cases against him, a report by Folha de Sao Paulo revealed Sunday that the majority of lower house lawmakers and senators prefer the path of indirect elections in Congress — not general elections — to replace the president. 
> Brazil’s constitution sets out indirect elections as the next step if Temer is removed from office, which many analysts expect is likely as his approval ratings sit at single digits and seem set to continue to worsen. 
> RELATED: 
> Temer Made an Extrajudicial Confession: Brazil Attorney General <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Temer-Made-an-Extrajudicial-Confession-Brazil-Attorney-General-20170526-0020.html>
> Opposition forces in Congress — including the Workers’ Party or PT of former Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Rousseff — are pushing for a constitutional amendment that would make direct generals elections by Brazilian voters the way to choose the next president. But it’s bound to be a steep battle in the Congress that, since Temer’s government was installed last year through Rousseff’s ouster, has swiftly approved a number of hotly controversial neoliberal austerity policies, including a reform that freezes public spending in areas such as health, education and other social programs for the next two decades. 
> While 85 percent of the Brazilian population favors direct elections according to recent polls, Folha found that there isn’t enough support in Congress to give the green light to the reform that would make it happen. 
> According to the newspaper’s report, 284 of the lower house’s 513 lawmakers and 54 of the 81 senators — 55 percent and 67 percent respectively — are against the idea of direct elections. With a 60 percent vote needed to approve constitutional reforms in Congress, the indirect election camp has the upper hand. 
> The removal of Rousseff last year in an impeachment process widely condemned as a parliamentary coup marked a conservative grab for power that the country’s right-wing parties couldn’t win at the ballot box for years. Now, with one of the goals of the coup — to shield politicians from facing prosecution <http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/New-Leak-Brazil-Politicians-Sought-Corruption-Probe-Shield-20160530-0011.html> for corruption — falling flat, rifts within the right-wing are showing as it scrambles to hold on to power.
> But what remains clear is that neither Temer’s PMDB party nor the right-wing PSDB — an ally that has hinted it is ready to turn on the president for a shot at seizing his spot in Brasilia — are not keen on a popular vote to choose the next president democratically. According to polls, that scenario would likely result in the election of the country’s most popular politician, Lula da Silva, as president once again, ending a brief era of conservative revival and harsh neoliberalism that favors the country's economic elite.
> *** 
>  
>  
> Brian Mier  <http://www.brasilwire.com/author/brianmier/>, May 25, 2017 
> Brasilia 24/5: A View from the Ground
> 
> DEMOCRACY <http://www.brasilwire.com/category/democracy/> SOCIAL INCLUSION <http://www.brasilwire.com/category/social-inclusion/> SOCIAL MOVEMENTS <http://www.brasilwire.com/category/social-movements/>
> SHARE 
> by Brian Mier.
> On the night of May 23, I joined a group of activists from the Central de Movimentos Populares (CMP) social movement for the 16 hour bus ride from São Paulo to Brasilia. The trip was coordinated as a bus caravan and as we stopped for dinner along the way it became apparent that this was going to be much larger than the solidarity act for Lula in Curitiba that took place two weeks ago. Buses, mainly funded by the union federations, were coming in from all across Brazil, from as far away as Rondonia and Manaus. To give an idea of the number of people coming in, the CUT union federation brought 40 buses from the city of Uberaba, Minas Gerais (pop. 350,000) alone. We stopped for breakfast in Cristalina, Goias, the next morning at a truck stop that had around 60 buses in its parking lot and the line for food was huge. It must have been the busiest morning that place had ever seen.
> 
> We arrived in Mané Garrincha stadium parking lot, packed with buses, at 11 AM and the leader of our group, Gegê <http://www.coha.org/the-general-strike-and-the-survival-of-the-latin-american-left-an-interview-with-luiz-gonzaga-gege-da-silva/>, announced that there would be an assembly in which we would vote on the plan of action, but the proposal was to hold a protest in front of the Ministry of the Cities at 2, and general protest march to the Congress and Senate buildings at 5. “We have to watch the Força Sindical”, he said, “we know they supported the coup last year, but their base members put so much pressure on the leadership that they’ve come out in force today and they may go off on their own”.
> 
> The Força Sindical, with around 5 million members, is the second largest union federation in Brazil and the fact that they have now come on board in the anti-austerity protests shows how much the Brazilian working class is rising up against the scandal-ridden Temer government, which had a 4% approval  <https://noticias.uol.com.br/ultimas-noticias/bbc/2017/04/26/aprovacao-de-temer-cai-a-4-92-veem-pais-no-rumo-errado.htm>rating before last weeks testimony from a JBS Corporation executive revealed millions of dollars in bribe money paid to the ruling PMDB and PSDB parties came to light, causing the arrest of Economist <http://www.brasilwire.com/the-economist-brasil-a-love-story/> and AS/COA <http://www.brasilwire.com/david-rockefeller-legacy-in-brasil/>‘s supported 2014 presidential candidate Aecio Neves’ sister and chief strategist.
> 
> 
> Sure enough, before the assembly could be held the Força Sindical took to the streets and some of the other union federations followed suit. By 12:30 PM, the entire 6 lane wide road between Mané Garrincha stadium and the Congress was full of people, before the CUT and the social movements even started. To give an idea of the scale of the protest, the distance between these two buildings is 4.1 km. This is four times larger than the 8 lane-wide section of Avenida Paulista that stationary pro-impeachment protesters filled up in 2016, in a protest that was widely exaggerated in the Brazilian and foreign media as having 1 million people in it. As crowd estimates grew from 150,000 to over 200,000 this was already the largest street protest that has ever taken place in the city of Brasilia.
> 
> To make it perfectly clear, this was not an “anti-corruption” protest, as has been misrepresented in the few Anglophone media outlets that covered the events. The two broad based social union and labor federation coalitions that spent months organizing it made their three demands perfectly clear to anyone in the media who took the time to read their press releases or speak with them: no austerity cuts, out with president Temer and direct elections now.
> 
> I was hired by the Brazilian blog Nocaute to film the events of the day, and positioned myself under a tree on the huge quad in front of the Congress building. As the sound truck with 8 union and social movement leaders on it arrived at the side of the Congress building and the quad began to fill up with people, the police opened fire with tear gas grenades. Some people panicked and began to run back. “Don’t panic. This is a peaceful protest and we have legal authorization to be here”, said a woman from CUT on top of the sound car. As the gas increased, she said, “OK, we’ve made our point. This protest has been a success. If you want to leave now, go ahead. We are going to turn our sound truck around and leave now.”
> Inside, Rodrigo Maia, President of Congress and next in line for the presidency should Michel Temer fall, panicked. This son of former Rio de Janeiro Mayor César Maia, representing the former official Military Dictatorship Party DEM (formerly PFL/ARENA) who only got 3% of the vote  <http://g1.globo.com/rj/rio-de-janeiro/apuracao/rio-de-janeiro.html>in the last Rio de Janeiro mayoral election, issued an order for Martial Law authorizing the Military to take over national security. This act cased pandemonium inside the House, and the session had to be shut down.
> 
> 
> At this point, CUT was still arriving in the area and as some people fled, tens of thousands of people arrived on the scene. As has happened time and time again since 2013, a group of self-proclaimed “black bloc” anarchists and youth, numbering 2-300 at most, began throwing rocks at the police and smashing windows. As usual, they had refused to participate in the protest planning process or any of the democratic assemblies that had been held to discuss tactics, and piggy-backed on 3 months of planning and mobilization by the organized Brazilian left. As usual, they were followed by a nearly as large group of photographers and video cameramen who knew that violence porn sells, that the for-profit media would certainly only highlight this spontaneous element of the protest, which had nothing to do with the objectives of the 200,000 peaceful protesters.
> 
> This was the only part of the protest that was covered in the media. TV Globo refused to show any footage of the march itself. It claimed that there were only around 5000 people there and only showed footage of chaos after the official protest had already ended. At this point, the foreign journalist community, which had completely ignored the protest all day, started tweeting about vandals damaging property in Brasilia. Some of them ignorantly/unethically declared that they were “anti-corruption protests”, and this misinformation was reflected in the Anglophone media coverage of the event, giving the casual news consumer the impression that Brazilians who ousted a corrupt leader last year were taking to the streets against in an unplanned, spontaneous expression of outrage against yet another corrupt leader. None of them took the time to speak to anyone from the unions or social movements who had successfully organized the event. As I made my way back to Mané Garrincha stadium, away from the slowly advancing front lines of rock throwers and military police, I heard random bursts of gunfire. I assumed at the time that it was rubber bullets but it turned out that some police were using live ammunition. There were military police helicopters flying low overhead and I was hit with a cloud of tear gas and temporarily blinded. As I was cutting through the bus station a group of jack-booted riot control police appeared out of nowhere, body slamming a teenage anarchist girl to the ground. I turned a corner and found myself face to face with a tonfa stick wheeling policeman. I raised my hands in the air and he quickly decided not to use it on me, but nearby one of his coworkers was pepper spraying a middle aged woman in business attire in the face. I cut back through the bus station and walked into a cloud of vomit gas. After dry heaving for about a minute, I made my way up a hill, set my camera up and filmed police officers firing tear gas grenades directly at union members who were trying to peacefully walk back to their buses. I arrived back at the bus, coughing up tear gas, to hear Gegê say that the protest was a success and the next step will be a two day, national strike, which will paralyze the country’s economic activity and certainly not be given the coverage it deserves in the capitalist media.
> 
> Main Photo: Midia Ninja. More images of 24/5 <http://midianinja.org/colunistaninja/multidao-toma-brasilia-por-novas-eleicoes-e-e-brutalmente-agredida/>.
> 
> ***
> 
> "Fora Temer – eleições diretas já!" Brazil's political rupture and the left's opportunity 
> 
> Alfredo Saad-Filho <https://www.opendemocracy.net/author/alfredo-saadfilho> 23 May 2017
> "Out with Temer – direct elections now!". Amid meltdown in Brazil, the left calls for democracy, while the right must find ways to deny the people a voice.
> 
>  <https://cdn.opendemocracy.net/files/imagecache/wysiwyg_imageupload_lightbox_preset/wysiwyg_imageupload/558532/PA-30942207.jpg>A puppet of Brazilian President Michel Temeris hanged up by a group of protesters in Sao Paulo, Brazil on April 15, 2017. NurPhoto/PA Images. All rights reserved.The Brazilian Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT) won the country’s presidential elections four times in a row; first with Luís Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-06, 2007-10), then with his hand-picked successor, Dilma Rousseff (2011-14, 2015-16). During its 13 years in office, the PT changed Brazil in many ways; four are principally worth mentioning, as they would come to play key roles in the elite conspiracy to impeach Dilma Rousseff and destroy her party.
> 
> First, the PT democratised the state. It implemented the social and civic rights included in the 1988 ‘Citizen’s Constitution’, and advanced Brazil’s emerging welfare state across several fields of social provision. 
> 
> Second, the PT changed the social composition of the state through the appointment of thousands of leaders of mass organisations to positions of power. For the first time in Brazilian history, millions of poor citizens could recognise themselves in the bureaucracy and relate to close friends and comrades who had become ‘important’ in Brasília.
> 
> For the first time in Brazilian history, millions of poor citizens could recognise themselves in the bureaucracy.
> 
> Third, PT policies contributed to a significant improvement in the distribution of income, through the creation of millions of unskilled jobs, a rising minimum wage, and higher transfers and benefits. 
> 
> Fourth, although the government never abandoned the neoliberal macroeconomic policy framework imposed in the 1990s, it gradually introduced, in parallel, neodevelopmental (that is, expansionary Keynesian) policies that helped to secure faster growth, higher profits and wages, and distributional gains.
> 
> Yet the PT failed to reform media ownership, which secured the space for a virulent opposition aligned with the country’s neoliberal elites. The party also endorsed a model of distribution based on financialisation, consumption, low-paid jobs, and transfers: essentially, both the rich and the poorest gained, while millions of skilled jobs were lost through the ‘globalisation’ of production, privatisations, the simplification of managerial structures and new information technologies. They sliced not only the number of ‘good jobs’ in manufacturing, but also middle management posts, and increased precarity even for relatively senior jobs.
> 
> The Workers’ Party elicited mounting opposition by the neoliberal elite and the upper middle class both because of what it did do, and because of what it failed to do. PT economic policies irked finance and most of the bourgeoisie; they suffered losses because of greater state intervention, the reduction of interest rates and the economic downturn since 2011; they also resented the perceived loss of their control over state policy under Rousseff.
> 
> Rousseff repelled most professional politicians because of her unwillingness to conform to the established principles of pork-barrel politics.
> 
> The upper middle classes were alienated from the PT because of their ideological commitment to neoliberalism, and because the party supported the economic and social ascent of the working class. The upper middle classes were also tormented by losses in their income and their dislocation from the outer circle of state power.
> 
> Rousseff repelled most professional politicians because of her unwillingness to conform to the established principles of pork-barrel politics. The government lost the support of large segments of informal workers, notably the flocks of Pentecostal churches that opposed the expansion of civic rights and progressive values, with flashpoints around Dilma’s opening towards the liberalisation of abortion and citizenship rights for homosexuals.
> 
> Finally, the expansion of the courts, the Attorney General’s Office and the federal police – in terms of size, resources and powers – enabled them to launch a devastating attack on the PT. 
> 
> These elite groups converged around an aggressive ‘alliance of privilege’ that was cemented ideologically by the mainstream media. The weakness of the political parties of the right enabled the media to take up the mantle of the opposition, hunting down the PT systematically, drawing upon a discourse which incorporated right-wing values, neoliberal economics, and strident allegations of corruption.
> 
> The revolt of the elite
> 
> The revolt of the elite was triggered by Dilma Rousseff’s re-election in 2014. Her victory came as a surprise to the alliance of privilege, who underestimated the capacity of the PT and the left to mobilise a progressive coalition drawing upon the working class and the poor. 
> 
> However, Rousseff’s triumph was fragile, and coincided with the continuing deterioration of the economy, which has plunged the Brazilian economy into the worst crisis in its recorded history. The distributional improvements that had legitimised the PT administrations stagnated. Repeated policy failures, the media onslaught, and the disorganisation of the government’s base within the most right-wing congress in decades, combined to create a generalised dissatisfaction that focused on the state.
> 
> Since 2005, the mainstream media and the judiciary launched successive waves of attack against the PT, with corruption emerging as the ideal tool to fell the Rousseff administration. The lava jato (carwash) operation, pioneered by the federal police since 2014, revealed that a cartel of engineering and construction companies had bribed a group of politically-appointed directors of the state-owned oil conglomerate Petrobras, in order to secure a virtual monopoly over oil and other contracts. Those bribes allegedly channelled funds to several political parties, among them the PT.
> 
> The federal police and public prosecutors made overt political use of these investigations. They disregarded evidence that right-wing parties were involved in similar cases, selectively leaked compromising information to the media, and sought to implicate the PT wherever this was possible. Prominent politicians and the managers of several large firms were routinely arrested in order to extract plea bargains. Those refusing to co-operate were imprisoned indefinitely. When they finally surrendered, the aspersions cast on the PT were blatantly used to fuel the scandal mill. Accusations against the other parties were normally ignored.
> 
> The unfolding scandal catalysed the emergence of a mass right-wing movement, whose grievances included a laundry list of deeply felt but unfocused dissatisfactions.
> 
> The unfolding scandal catalysed the emergence of a mass right-wing movement populated by the upper middle classes, whose grievances included a laundry list of deeply felt but unfocused dissatisfactions articulated as demands for the ‘end of corruption’ and Dilma’s impeachment. Their excitement was misguided, for three reasons. 
> 
> First, the anti-corruption discourse of the alliance of privilege was selective. It targeted the institutions and parties aligned with neodevelopmentalism, suggesting that their most important goal was to change government policy, rather than eliminate corruption.
> 
> Second, chatter about corruption provided a convenient figleaf, obscuring meaningful debate on economic policy. For example, the neoliberal bourgeoisie would find it difficult to campaign to curtail labour rights, cut pensions, weaken domestic industry and cripple Petrobras. However, if these goals were disguised as a ‘struggle against corruption’, policy changes could be smuggled in later, regardless of the interests of the vast majority. 
> 
> Third, the coordinated attack by the judiciary and the media disconnected the PT from its sources of funding and its mass support. The loss of millions of jobs and billions of dollars in output and investment were merely collateral damage.
> 
> Lava jato was remarkable for another reason, unrelated to corruption: it was indicative of a severe distortion of Brazil’s constitution, by which guarantees of the independence of the judiciary supported the emergence of a self-appointed group of ‘pure’ investigators, in fact aligned with the political right, who called upon themselves to clean up the political system.
> 
> Their mission was fortuitously supported by elites’ mounting animosity towards the PT, the sensitivities of the middle classes, the deepening economic crisis, and the paralysis of the Rousseff administration. In the mêlée, the economic crisis, rising unemployment, gargantuan corruption and a torrent of scandals became thoroughly enmeshed. 
> 
> The mainstream media began trumpeting a message that the PT was at the centre of a web of thievery without precedent: Lula and Dilma were robbing the republic by day and at night, they conspired to turn Brazil into a satellite of Venezuela. Rousseff lost a voter on her impeachment in the Chamber of Deputies by 367-137, on 17 April 2016, and by 61-20 in the Senate, on 31 August.
> 
> Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment was a grotesque spectacle. Her trial was overtly political, all legal niceties having been abandoned long ago, and it was transparently orchestrated by a cabal of thieving politicians. They claimed the right to impose an unconstitutional vote of no confidence on a President who had made mistakes, but committed no crime.
> 
> The impeachment process was driven by an unholy coalition between the leadership of the opposition, bitterly regretting their four consecutive defeats in Presidential elections, leading figures in the judiciary, Rousseff’s traitorous Vice-President, Michel Temer, and the Machiavellian speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha, who was struggling with heavy corruption charges in Brazil and in Switzerland (he would end up in prison soon afterwards, his usefulness to the coup overwhelmed by the heavy political cost of the allegations being made against him). They were trailed by a motley crew of minor characters, many of whom were accused of egregious crimes – not least corruption – and by a parade of business leaders whom the media fêted as if they were the nation’s saviours. 
> 
> After the impeachment 
> 
> In the following months, the administration led by Michel Temer engaged in a fully-fledged attempt to restore orthodox neoliberalism, undermine employment rights and internationalise the economy. The government’s attack was impeded only by its own venality, incompetence and endless tribulations, as Temer stumbled against the law, emerging mass resistance and the ongoing threat that his parliamentary base of support would disintegrate. 
> 
> Temer stumbled. This was expected. What came as a surprise was the recent split in the alliance of privilege.
> 
> This was expected. What came as a surprise was the recent split in the alliance of privilege. The main interest of capital as a whole was the restoration of orthodox neoliberalism, relying on the judiciary to continue dismantling the PT. 
> 
> But by now the judicial attack had already gained its own momentum, and it has been strongly backed by the upper middle classes, which treat the judges and public prosecutors as major celebrities. In the country of football megastars, soap operas and Carmen Miranda, this is important. And indeed the media has harnessed huge revenues from popular interest in the investigations.
> 
> On 18 May, the owners of JBS, the world’s largest meat processing conglomerate, agreed a plea bargain. They revealed JBS funding to 28 parties and almost 2,000 politicians, and produced evidence of large cash payments to the leader of the right wing PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) and runner-up in the 2014 presidential elections, Aécio Neves, against whom multiple accusations had already emerged but were never investigated seriously. Finally, JBS produced the recording of a conversation between one of its owners and President Temer, suggesting that JBS would pay Eduardo Cunha for his continuing silence while in jail, in order to avoid incriminating his old friend Temer.
> 
> The reaction in Brazil was explosive. Temer, already tainted by multiple allegations of corruption and other misdemeanours, and facing difficulties pushing his neoliberal agenda in congress, was abandoned by parts of the mainstream media, who spotted a lame duck and called for his resignation or, failing that, impeachment. His political allies are jumping ship. Temer is probably doomed. 
> 
> The problem for the remnants of the alliance of privilege is what to do next: the constitution suggests that congress should elect an interim president to steer the ship until the 2018 elections. The left is calling for direct elections now. Elections are unacceptable for the alliance of privilege, because the political right is divided and has no readily viable candidate.
> 
> Despite the political chaos, the Brazilian left finds itself in a good position for the first time in several years. The genie has not only escaped from its bottle; it has gone berserk.
> 
> In contrast, the left could field Lula, who is leading in the polls in spite of the attacks he has been enduring for several years, and despite the fact he is facing investigations that are certain to find him guilty of something: in a few months, he is likely to be unable to run for public office. 
> 
> Despite the political chaos, the Brazilian left finds itself in a good position for the first time in several years. The genie has not only escaped from its bottle; it has gone berserk. Temer is damaged goods rather than a statesman; it has become incontrovertible that Dilma Rousseff was overthrown by a criminal gang; the alliance of privilege is split, and the left is calling for elections while the right must find ways to deny the people a voice.
> 
The left can win this battle, and upend the conspiracy of the elites. Now is the time to fight, on the streets, in the offices, factories, and neighbourhoods: Fora Temer – eleições diretas já!



______________________________

Jai Sen

jai.sen at cacim.net <mailto:jai.sen at cacim.net>
www.cacim.net <http://www.cacim.net/> / http://www.openword.net.in

Now based in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325) and in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded Algonquin territory (+1-613-282 2900) 

Recent publications :

Jai Sen, ed, 2016  – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ? (forthcoming in 2017 from New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press), ADVANCE PREFINAL ONLINE MOVEMENT EDITION @ www.cacim.net <http://www.cacim.net/>
Jai Sen, ed, 2013 – The Movements of Movements : Struggles for Other Worlds, Part I. Prefinal version of Volume 4 Part I in the Challenging Empires series. New Delhi : OpenWord.  Prefinal version 1.0 available @ http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/the_movements_of_movements/ <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/the_movements_of_movements/>
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS  :

Jai Sen, ed, 2017a – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ?.  Volume 4 in the Challenging Empires series (New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press).  Available for pre-order at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
&

Jai Sen, ed, 2017b – The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our Dance.  Volume 5 in the Challenging Empires series (New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press)

CHECK OUT CACIM @ www.cacim.net <http://www.cacim.net/>, OpenWord @ http://www.openword.net.in <http://www.openword.net.in/>, and OpenSpaceForum @ www.openspaceforum.net <http://www.openspaceforum.net/>
AND SUBSCRIBE TO World Social Movement Discuss, an open, unmoderated, and self-organising forum for the exchange of information and views on the experience, practice, and theory of social and political movement at any level (local, national, regional, and global), including the World Social Forum.  To subscribe, simply send an empty email to wsm-discuss-subscribe at lists.openspaceforum.net <mailto:wsm-discuss-subscribe at lists.openspaceforum.net>
______________________________

Jai Sen

jai.sen at cacim.net <mailto:jai.sen at cacim.net>
www.cacim.net <http://www.cacim.net/> / http://www.openword.net.in

Now based in New Delhi, India (+91-98189 11325) and in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded Algonquin territory (+1-613-282 2900) 

Recent publications :

Jai Sen, ed, 2016  – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ? (forthcoming in 2017 from New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press), ADVANCE PREFINAL ONLINE MOVEMENT EDITION @ www.cacim.net <http://www.cacim.net/>
Jai Sen, ed, 2013 – The Movements of Movements : Struggles for Other Worlds, Part I. Prefinal version of Volume 4 Part I in the Challenging Empires series. New Delhi : OpenWord.  Prefinal version 1.0 available @ http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/the_movements_of_movements/ <http://www.into-ebooks.com/book/the_movements_of_movements/>
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS  :

Jai Sen, ed, 2017a – The Movements of Movements, Part 1 : What Makes Us Move ?.  Volume 4 in the Challenging Empires series (New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press).  Available for pre-order at PM Press <http://www.pmpress.org/>
&

Jai Sen, ed, 2017b – The Movements of Movements, Part 2 : Rethinking Our Dance.  Volume 5 in the Challenging Empires series (New Delhi : OpenWord and Oakland, CA : PM Press)

CHECK OUT CACIM @ www.cacim.net <http://www.cacim.net/>, OpenWord @ http://www.openword.net.in <http://www.openword.net.in/>, and OpenSpaceForum @ www.openspaceforum.net <http://www.openspaceforum.net/>
AND SUBSCRIBE TO World Social Movement Discuss, an open, unmoderated, and self-organising forum for the exchange of information and views on the experience, practice, and theory of social and political movement at any level (local, national, regional, and global), including the World Social Forum.  To subscribe, simply send an empty email to wsm-discuss-subscribe at lists.openspaceforum.net <mailto:wsm-discuss-subscribe at lists.openspaceforum.net>
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