WHY THE IMPEACHMENT IS LEGAL AND 93% OF BRAZILIANS SUPPORT IT

By Paulo Gabriel Martins de Moura, PhD

Master in Political Science by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), with a doctorate in Communication by the Pontiff Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), and professor of Political Science of the Lutheran University of Brazil (ULBRA)

The approval by the lower house of Congress of the commencement of the imepachment process by 367 against 137 votes is the result of the persistence of millions of Brazilians who have been peacefully protesting on the streets and creating social movements for this end since the beginning of 2015.

The impeachment petition signed by Helio Bicudo (former national leader of the Workers Party, to which presidente Dilma belongs), Janaina Paschoal and Miguel Reale Jr., three renouned lawyers in Brazil, was filed on May 27 with the suport of ‘Brasil Livre’, ‘Vem Pra Rua’, ‘Revoltados Online’, ‘Brasil Melhor’ and many other social movement groups that organize (without the support of any political party or corporate sponsors) the successive protests which have been taking millions of Brazilians to the streets since March 2015.

This impeachment petition accuses Dilma Rousseff of disrespecting the Fiscal Responsibility Law, and is supported by the evidence provided by the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU), that is responsbile for assisting the Congress in auditing the Executive branch of the Republic, and that has rejected by unanimity the government acccounts.

The impeachment proceedings obey the constitutional requirements, were approved by the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF), and are expected to be approved by the Senate in the next few weeks. The President, besides having committed fiscal fraud, which has generated an economic crisis without precedents in the Brazilian history (three years of recession with a negative 4% fall in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), has also had her direct assistants cited by informers who made plea-bargain confessions in the Car Wash Investigations as having financed her electoral campaigns with money taken from Estate companies. There already exist evidence that Dilma has obstructed justice as well as having committed various other crimes. These crimes have led to the filing of yet another impeachment petition filed in Congress by the Bar Association of Brazil (OAB). 

Due to the fear of iminente loss of power, the Workers Party (PT) and Dilma Rousseff have decided to use the international media to plant a fantastic version of the facts saying that the impeachment is a coup d’etat, and does not find support in the facts. Therefore, the social scientist Augusto de Franco has mapped the false arguments of the Workers Party and identified the 7 lies that Dilma Rousseff is attempting to spread via the international media.

7 LIES THAT LULA, DILMA ROUSSEFF AND THE WORKERS PARTY (PT) HAVE INVENTED TO FOOL THE FOREIGN PRESS AND MANIPULATE THE PUBLIC OPINION… and the seven truths they omit to convey:-

The narrative of Lula, Dilma Rousseff and the Workers Party and its supporters reveal the narrative schemed by the Workers Party to spread to the international press that there would be a coup in Brazil. Let’s turn the questions - with some additions – into a script of false claims.

1 - By voting for opening the process, almost no congressman/woman mentioned the central point of the impeachment process, i.e. budgetary crimes. This is evidence that Dilma is being thrown out of office for other reasons not in the process.

2 - Government says previous administrations and state governments - including PSDB (major opposition party) - also employed budgetary crimes and were not shot down.

3 - When voting, congressman Jair Bolsonaro extolled the 1964 military regime and Colonel Ustra, convicted of torture and kidnapping. This proves that right is involved in the conspiracy to take Dilma out of office, without her having committed any crime.

4 - The US would be interested and would be working behind the scenes in favor of a change of government in Brazil.

5 - The next step to impeachment will be an operation to muffle the “Lava Jato” investigation to save corrupt politicians who want to depose Dilma. Most of those who voted for impeachment are corrupt and are just trying to escape justice.

6 - The head of congress, Eduardo Cunha had no credibility to conduct the impeachment. Allegations against him make his position untenable. He set it up for revenge and led the process to obtain the approval of impeachment by the House.

7 - Michel Temer, the vice president, is unable to preside over the country. Temer is mentioned in the Lava Jato and complicate his situation.
Conclusion. The process is illegitimate. It seeks to revoke the 54 million votes received by an honest person, legitimately elected. It is a Coup (parliamentary) struck by the elites, by the conservative sectors and the right, who do not accept the results of the 2014 elections and who do not accept seeing the poor attending college and taking air-travels.

WHAT LULA, DILMA AND THE WORKERS PARTY FAIL TO MENTION

1 - That the process of impeachment was validated by the Supreme Federal Court, whose members (8 in 11) were mostly appointed by Lula and Dilma. That it was the Supreme Court that established the process (which is being closely followed by the Congress) and that most of its ministers (as judges in the Supreme Court are called in Brazil) publicly repudiate the false accusation that there is a coup in the country.

2 - That the vast majority of Members who voted in favor of impeachment (367 of the total of 513 against only 137 in favor of Dilma) were the government's base until recently. That Temer is the vice-president, chosen twice in a row by Rousseff and the PT, as the representative of the main alliance (with the PMDB) and was even named by Dilma recently as her political operator. That, so far, there is nothing consistent and discreditable to Temer in THE Lava Jato. That Cunha left the government coalition and not the opposition and that he was not the one who approved the impeachment, having only fulfilled the role of protocol to abide to the request for impeachment and forward its proceedings as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

3 - That all the leaders of the parliamentary opposition support the continuation of the Lava Jato operation and that the vast majority of the population also supports it, in addition to considering the judge Sergio Moro as a kind of hero of democracy.

4 - That the impeachment was only forwarded by the parliament due to the strong support of millions of people on the streets, in the largest political demonstrations in Brazil's history, on March 15th, April 12th, August 16th, 2015 and on March 13th and April 17th, 2016. That in Brazil there is now a popular opposition that was not organized, nor is led by any traditional political player, but emerged from the society and is willing to exercise the democratic resistance. That this popular opposition has nothing to do with Temer, Cunha and even with Aécio Neves (President of the main opposition party).

5 - That the vast majority of the population (almost 80%), according to surveys of all serious opinion polls, disapprove Dilma’s government and that over 60% of Brazilians are in favor of the impeachment.

6 - That Dilma committed several crimes of responsibility, which are typified in the report of the impeachment committee of the House of Representatives. That in Lula’s and FHC’s government there really was a mismatch between the moment public banks were spending to finance some social programs and the moment the bank received the money from the Treasury, but the Total amount in FHC’s government was R$ 500 million, in Lula’s the same thing, whereas with Dilma the were R$ 57 BILLION (much of it spent irregularly during an election year). That she also committed - though this is not on trial in the current impeachment process - many other crimes linked to the fraudulent purchase of the Pasadena refinery and the Petrolão (major corruption scheme involving the largest oil company in Latan - Petrobras) as a whole, that she practiced obstruction of justice (by appointing a minister from the Supreme Court to free the head of the contractors gang, Marcelo Odebrecht, from jail), that she was involved with the making of a false dossier against Ruth Cardoso, through its agent in the Civil House, Erenice Guerra (who is being sued by a bunch of other very serious crimes). And that in addition to all of this, she has become the deputy head of this faction (the head is Lula), turning the Planalto Palace into a bunker where she rallies to the partisan militancy and strikes attacks at the parliamentary and judicial institutions of the democratic state. That in practice, she has already delivered the presidency to Lula (who has no mandate, but has the power to buy parliamentarians holding public office with cash in a hotel room located near the Alvorada Palace, the official presidential residence). Finally, that she has invented and keeps repeating in Brazil and abroad, the false narrative of the coup, contrary to what the institutions of Brazilian democracy say.

7 - That the request for impeachment was not submitted by the opposition but by Helio Bicudo (former national leadership member of PT), Janaina Pachouli and Miguel Reale Jr., all known jurists with good reputation, having nothing to do with corruption.