Dilma Rousseff Impeachment & Implications for BRICS
Brazil – the fifth-largest country of the world, both by area and population is slated to organize Olympics in the coming August. But recently it has not been so much in news for Olympics as it has been for its political upheavals.
It all started when the elected President Dilma Rousseff was accused of corruption and on various accounts. This saga of dirty politics began in late 2015 and has continued through 2016. The charges against Rousseff include administrative misconduct and disregarding the federal budget, money laundering in Petrobras petroleum company, etc.
Just a couple of weeks back, adversaries of Rousseff succeeded and the Senate voted to try her for breaking budget laws leaving Vice President Michel Temer in power for next six months during her trial. But immediately as Temer who is himself corruption-tainted, took over from Rousseff, a prominent US journalist, lawyer and author, Glenn Greenwald alleged that the Acting President Temer will faithfully serve the interests of Brazil's richest and is planning to appoint Goldman Sachs and IMF (International Monetary Fund) officials to run the economy.
Leading news agencies including Sputnik, Russia Today too and even the social media has erupted with allegations against this whole series of Rousseff's impeachment calling it handiwork of United States and its intelligence agencies. They also allege that this happening has dealt a heavy blow to Brazil's democracy, giving the country's corrupt neoliberal elite a free reign. Allegers have also raised questions on the cabinet composition of Temer as it has zero diversity with members being whites and men.
Interestingly another US political analyst, Eric Draitser had written an article couple of months back in which he elaborates that the protest movements brewing in Brazil have US's marks all over them and they have direct ties with few US billionaires, as well as other leading figures of US far right, neoliberal establishment.
After a 21 years of right-wing (USA / UK supported) military dictatorship in Brazil since 2002 its Workers Party (of Rousseff) has enjoyed overwhelming public support and has won four straight national elections. But now with these happenings common Brazilians are both sad and frightened with the pace and the ease with which this has been reversed.
To understand this in the Indian context, Dilma Rousseff was playing an important and constructive role in the BRICS – an association of world’s five major emerging economies, of which India is a leading member. BRICS in the last few years have been giving G7 – the association of world’s seven major advanced economies a run for their money as BRICS nations are seeing fastest growth numbers and hence have been checkmating G7 on multiple economic fronts threatening their monetary dominance that they wield over the world. This geographically far-off example of Brazil shows us that any happening in the world can have implications on us and hence it is important to be aware and informed.
