Everything Is Going Wrong In Brazil Ahead Of The Olympics – Huffington Post

The Political Crisis

The president’s impeachment has plunged Brazil into chaos.

In December, with a corruption scandal threatening to boil over and the economy slumping, members of the political opposition in Brazil’s legislature launched efforts to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, who won re-election for a second term in 2014. Earlier this month, Rousseff’s opponents got their wish when a majority of the Senate voted to remove her, suspending her from the presidency and subjecting her to a 180-day impeachment trial.

The main charges against Rousseff are that she misused federal funds to obscure the size of Brazil’s deficit in violation of federal law. She has also faced inquiries about whether she took illegal campaign contributions from Petrobras, the state-owned oil behemoth for which she once served as president of the board of directors.

Rousseff has not been directly implicated in the Petrobras corruption scandal, the focus of a two-year investigation known as “Operation Car Wash.” The same is not true of the president’s biggest critics, including Eduardo Cunha, the representative who initiated Rousseff’s ouster, and 23 members of Brazil’s lower house of Congress — 18 of whom voted to impeach her.

But Rousseff has also drawn public ire for her role in Brazil’s ongoing budget problems and for her controversial March decision to appoint Silva — who has himself been implicated in Operation Car Wash — as her chief of staff. The president’s critics interpreted the move as an effort to shield her former mentor from prosecution.

“Fora Dilma” (Dilma Out) protesters took to the streets in March after Rousseff appointed Silva, while thousands of counter-protesters demonstrated against an impeachment that many liken to a coup. Rounds of tense protests have gripped Brazil’s largest cities, including Rio, as a result.

Rousseff’s popularity has sagged to incredible lows, but Brazilians aren’t exactly thrilled with her successor. Vice President Michel Temer, who is now acting as the country’s interim president, has his own legal troubles. And as the Brazilian newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reports, his chosen congressional leader is also a target of the Operation Car Wash probe and has been accused of attempted murder. Even before that news broke, 60 percent of Brazilians wanted Temer to face impeachment proceedings, too.

Temer has also drawn widespread condemnation for naming a 23-member Cabinet composed entirely of white men, sparking fears that diversity efforts expanded under Silva and Rousseff’s Workers’ Party will be lost. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on Wednesday expressed its “deep concern” that the Cabinet choices have left “more than half the population excluded from the highest government offices,” and that Temer’s decisions will “have a negative impact on the protection and promotion of human rights in the country.”

The office of the Brazilian presidency told WorldPost that Temer was focused on reducing the number of government ministries and had already expressed his commitment to appointing women to leadership positions. “The profile of the ministry leaders owes to circumstantial reasons, including the urgent need to reduce the number of ministries and rationalize the public bureaucracy, and doesn’t reflect, in any way, any ‘position’ of the government on the issue,” the statement said. 

The political turmoil is unlikely to directly affect the operation of the Olympics. But with Rousseff facing a six-month trial and Brazilians already deeply dissatisfied with her replacement, the specter of the political crisis will no doubt hang over the games — and endure long after they are over.