Brazil’s elected government is in the news, but is it in the middle of a coup? Unlike Latin American coups in the 20th century, Brazil’s current turmoil involves no armies and no bloodshed — but Brazil could see a regime change, a “soft coup.”
I’ve been studying Latin American politics for the past 20 years, and documenting the right-wing strategy of manipulating public opinion to discredit socialist governments. What’s happening in Brazil has happened elsewhere.
A brief summary of the political crisis in Brazil
In Brazil, South America’s continent-sized, resource-rich giant, the Workers Party (PT) won the presidency in 2003 and has remained in power for the past 13 years. Led by Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, a charismatic leader Newsweek once called “the most popular politician on earth,” the PT built its broad appeal on economic policies that generated growth with low inflation, and created social programs for income redistribution in one of the most unequal countries in the world.
In 2011, Dilma Rousseff replaced her mentor and became the country’s first female president. Rousseff never enjoyed the same popularity as Lula, who was implicated in 2016 in a corruption case and money-laundering case involving the state-owned oil company Petrobras. Prosecutors have never accused Rousseff of being involved in the corruption, but the speaker of Brazil’s lower house has pushed forward impeachment charges against her for alleged misuse of money from public banks to cover gaps in the government budget. On April 11, a committee in Brazil’s lower house voted to recommend impeachment.
The full lower house is expected to vote on the impeachment on April 17. If a two-thirds majority votes for impeachment, the process would then be forwarded to the Brazilian Senate.
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Both Lula and Rousseff have accused Brazil’s right-wing parties of conspiring to bring down the PT presidency, calling it a coup attempt. In an April 12 interview, Rousseff accused Vice President Michel Temer of conspiring openly “to destabilize a legitimately elected president.” In early April, thousands of Rousseff supporters protested in Brazil’s cities, chanting “There’s not going to be a coup.”
But there is a deeper story than just corruption, or simple opportunism by Rousseff’s political adversaries. Recent events in Latin America suggest that what’s happening in Brazil is part of a broad right-wing campaign to tarnish the PT and bring down Rousseff, as well as Lula.
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Originally Posted by BiffCo99
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