Former President Dilma Rousseff is impeached

On today’s afternoon (Wednesday, August 31, 2016), the former President of Brazil, Ms. Dilma Vana Rousseff, was officially impeached by the Federal Senate, after voting resulted in 61 in favour of her exit and 20 against. However she still retains her political rights, voted separately from her mandate, making her eligible to new elections. The reunion to decide Rousseff’s destiny had began on last Thursday (August 25) and went through the week (except on Sunday (August 28) until today. Now the Vice-President in exercise of the function of President, Mr. Michel Temer, will be vested as President in an extemporary ceremony at the Chamber of Deputies, and his position remains vacant until new elections, in 2018.

First day – Thursday, August 25

The first day of Rousseff’s trial was intended to read the formal accusations against the former President and to hear the testimonies of accusation witnesses. Ricardo Lewandowski, President of Federal Court of Justice, was replacing the Senate’s President, Renan Calheiros, in order to conduce the trial properly. Just in the beginning of the reunion, around ten parliamentarians rehearsed using regimental resources to prevent the speed of the process, but Lewandowski was strictly against them all and keep on going with the meeting until a deep confusion caused by a discussion between parliamentarians Gleici Hoffmann, Ronaldo Caiado and Lindbergh Farias. Hoffmann declared none of her colleagues had the morality to be there, judging a President, and both senators condemned her behaviour, sparkling a discussion with tons of curses and accusations between themselves. Lewandowski opted for ending the plenary session in order to calm all politicians present there. The session came back afterwards and went on without bigger troubles.

Second day – Friday, August 26

On the second day, Lewandowski and all parliamentarians were supposed to hear the testimonies of defence witnesses. Former ministries of Rousseff’s government were called to testify about her conduct as Head of State, and the defence tried many different ways to disqualify accusation’s witnesses, being them rejected by the President of Federal Court of Justice. However, Caiado and Farias went on another discussion, leading Lewandowski to suspend the reunion and threat both parliamentarians of expelling them from the Plenary. Besides this, there was another discussion happening at the very same time, now between Hoffmann and Calheiros, the President of Senate, but he declared some hours later he was sorry for what he said to his colleague. It was also reported that the senator Ana Amélia had called the Ethics Committee against Hoffmann’s speech in the previous day.

Third day – Saturday, August 27

As the previous session took too long, some defence witnesses were transferred to Saturday, in order not to extend too much the reunion. It was a consensus between these last witnesses that the edict granted by Rousseff were not criminal nor disrespected the budget agreements, despite all proofs shown by the accusation. Since most of parliamentarians were already decided about their votes, the session was only protocol – Rousseff’s opposites were already celebrating their extra official victory and her allies were planning manoeuvres to split the voting in two, being one for her impeachment and the other one for her political rights. This division was successful among parliamentarians some days afterwards.

Fourth day – Monday, August 29

On Monday, parliamentarians were severely anxious, since it was due to be Rousseff’s testimony in front of the Senate and the Brazilian people. The former President came up the pulpit to expatiate about her achievements as a ruling leader and to denounce she was being victim of a coup and that parliamentarians were convicting an innocent person. Rousseff was heavily questioned by all senators, and also by her defenders and detractors, and spoke for around thirteen hours about her government, the illegal negotiations for supplementary credits, and the accusation of fiscal responsibility crime against her. The session ended with Janaína Paschoal, one of the main heads of the impeachment process, questioning Rousseff about the economic crisis in Brazil and about the then President’s inability to deal with it by not hearing Guido Mantega (former ministry of Finance) when he advised her one year before the great eruption, while the people from Workers’ Party (Rousseff’s political party) did not question properly Rousseff, preferring to use their time to extol her government and to claim she was being victim of a parliamentary coup. The reunion took around fourteen hours, and Rousseff was acclaimed by position and opposition for not fail to respond any questions directed to her.

Fifth day – Tuesday, August 30

The following day was remarkable as the last opportunity for both sides to expose their points of views and to discuss the culpability of Rousseff for her manoeuvres to ensnare the National Treasury. Paschoal used her time to defend her position as one of the authors of the impeachment process not to personally offend Rousseff, but to teach her a lesson of honesty and citizenship, alongside the urgent wish to build a better place to her grandchildren. – the jurist also said she was sorry for causing so much suffering to Rousseff, but she couldn’t be quiet watching all this misrepresentation of the Brazilian politics On the other hand, José Eduardo Cardozo, Rousseff’s lawyer, was very incisive when claiming this process was a bogus attempt to belittle the former President’s work as a leader, and that the parliamentarians following the intention of impeach Rousseff would regret this very decision in the future – he even cried when being interviewed by journalists after his defence, alleging he felt tremendously inadmissible with Paschoal citing Rousseff’s grandchildren as a cheap resource to move public opinion.

Sixth day – Wednesday, August 31, 2016

On the last day of the process, it was meant just to vote Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment , but parliamentarians from her party were successful in splitting her judging into two parts – the former President should be voted for her impeachment of continuing her presidential mandate, and after for her right of still be eligible for next elections. In Brazil, if these two things are judged together and the politician is convicted, he loses his political rights and remains ineligible for eight years – just as happened to Fernando Collor de Mello, former President impeached in 1992. Taken the decision, the first voting was extremely tense, but no news to people: with 61 votes in favour and 20 against, and also with no abstentions nor absences, Dilma Rousseff was officially declared impeached of keeping on her presidential mandate. However, in the second voting, there were no consensus among parliamentarians, resulting in 42 in favour of Roussef’s political disablement , 36 against it and 3 abstentions – the minimum quorum required to approve the punishment was 54 favourable votes. With this, Rousseff is not barred from holding public offices nor standing in next election. This last decision was acclaimed by her fellows, but earned mixed reaction on opposition – Hélio Bicudo, jurist and one of the authors of the impeachment process, said he wasn’t as happy as expected, since this last decision did not live up to the Clean Record Law, a federal law that states no politician with court lawsuits are allowed to run for elections. After the ending of the section, Temer had a brief reception to officialise his presidential inauguration and made a speech for open TV channels talking the last news and calling population to keep together throughout the way back to ordinary. Rousseff, meanwhile, is planning a last TV appearance to allege she is suffering a parliamentary coup and that the Senate had convicted an innocent woman due to misogyny and frivolous and unfounded accusations.

Summing up this whole situation: Brazil has now a new President – by far, the country is now on the hands of his interim, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Mr. Rodrigo Maia, since Temer had flew tonight to China, where he joins the G-20 reunion in Shanghai next week – but this is definitely not enough to solve all the problems, since all other corrupt politicians are still ruling the game. Brazil does need an urgent political reform, due to its trouble with endemic corruption and inappropriate conduction of its political representatives. Temer is definitely not the best option to the country, but we do need to learn how to go on step by step when we talk about politics.

Rio 2016: what we can learn from this event

So the Olympics are over... After many medals – actually, not that much for Brazil, although the country had its best results in Olympic Games’ history – and many difficulties, the world had seen Brazil in its best form – or not. Since early 2016, rumour has it that Brazil was completely inappropriate and unprepared to receive this major event. Not only the country was going through a political reverse, but also the constructions for the games were too late and too badly made, which caused a great stir among athletes and the IOC, responsible for Rio 2016 Olympic Games. In addition, a major infectious hecatomb was abridging Brazil: the zika virus, which has already caused many deaths and fetal malformations (mainly microcephaly), and also de-encouraged many athletic delegations to join the Olympics. Yes, now Rio 2016 is over, but there’s a lot to learn from it…

First of all, the opening ceremony. Made with a very reduced budget than previous ones, the opening in Maracanã Stadium was happily praised due to its creativity and its colourful mise-en-scène. However there were criticism about the choices of musical attractions and the almost unnoticeable presence of Michel Temer, Vice President of Brazil in exercise of the function of President of Brazil. Artists such as Karol Conká and Elza Soares were revered by the crowd, as long as Anitta and Caetano Veloso were considered as minor figures – also, the fact that Veloso decided to show his opposition to Dilma Roussef’s impeachment and Temer’s government by raising a panel written “Fora Temer” (Off With Temer) was heavily criticized.

On the other hand, afraid of being booed by the audience, the President asked not to be formally announced, which caused discomfort among the presents, since Temer is officially the Head of Brazilian State and should have been presented as this. The Internet is unforgiving, so it didn’t take too long to start appearing jokes and memes about Temer’s ghost-like apparition.

In addition, an inelegant and unforeseen happening was disgusted by the Heads of State present in the opening: José Serra, the just-nominated Minister of Foreign Affairs, decided to fire the Chief of Ceremonial of Itamaraty’s Palace, Fernando Igreja, one day before the opening ceremony, due to his connections with Rousseff’s government. The firing was reported in the press as something previously arranged, but the truth is even Igreja was caught by surprise.

After the opening, some incident involving foreign athletes were seen as bad to Brazilian portrait in front of all nations: the Brazilian audience, still unprepared for some sports, booed some games and caused stir amongst the athletes and teams; a group of Olympic swimmers got involved in a drunk fight in a gas station and, trying not to be injured by the incident, decided to lie to the police by reporting an armed robbery; and also the critics from some athletes about the audience’s attitude not being suitable for an event such as the Olympic Games. These minor troubles are certainly bad to Brazil in comparison to other countries, but it might be remembered that we are no example of politeness nor morality to anyone.

In the closing ceremony, things went through nicely and Rio de Janeiro passed the Olympic Torch to Tokyo, city in which will happen the next edition of the event, in 2020. Temer wasn’t even present at Maracanã Stadium this time, so his detractors had more than enough reasons to criticize him and his actions as President.

Although people are still surrounded by the Olympic spirit, it is utterly important to notice that municipal elections are about to happen and people must be aware of their representatives in these Legal and Executive bodies. Unfortunately the majority will still be deceived by “panis et circensis”, a way of leading a government as old as time, but we all still fight for development in basic education – fatally, the only way out of this trap.

Why people should read more carefully political contracts before signing

“I read and agree with the terms of the contract”. Yes, this is the biggest lie ever. Mostly ever we did not read any line of this contract, leading us to have great trouble in dealing with misfortunes and unplanned events. Consumers’ right is one of the hardest things to deal with because of these setbacks, but the most important rule is: if it is precisely described in the contract, it must be accomplished and, since the client sign it, he agrees with everything written down there. If he doesn’t, he must had discussed the terms before signing.

Said that, we can start to think about politics and the terms of its contract, in accordance to what Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in his masterpiece “Leviathan”: to validate the social contract, the population must either accept all terms of it or discuss certain themes to decide what is the best to do about them. It is the very same axiom used by the business to talk about the signing of contracts – so, until here, no mysteries, I guess. So why is there a riot happening now in Brazil, after the former President, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached to continue her government and her Vice-President, Michel Temer, assumed interim the Head Office of the country? Why is people accusing Temer of scammer, claiming he was not legally elected, so he cannot continue his government? And, finally: why people still think Rousseff’s impeachment was a coup?

To get it started, the first thing I should clarify here is: Michel Temer was, in fact, democratically elected to his chair – of Vice-President. He was by Rousseff’s side during the presidential run, and was a very good professional as Vice-President until her exit. Like in any other place in which runs a presidential democratic regime, when the President has something important to do that might prevents him/her to keep up with his/her formal activities and agenda, it is the Vice-President’s obligation to resume business and continue his Chief’s activities, in order to avoid delays in political daily routine. When Rousseff was temporarily away from her duties – for instance, during official visits to countries abroad – it was Temer who used to substitute her, for example, to sign federal decrees. These events did never disquieted the population, who voted also for Temer when voted for Rousseff.

However, when she was accused of sabotage the national finances, she was forced by both Chamber of the Deputies and Federal Senate to leave her chair, and Temer assumed as Interim President of Brazil, which led Rousseff’s supporters riot against his tenure and question the legality of the formal proceedings that formalize Temer’s government. There is no crime nor mistake in his lead, because he was already the Vice-President and just assumed the presidential function due to the exit of the former President. So, here I state the first certainty: there was no coup in Brazil, only the Vice-President assuming the presidential duties and replacing his Chief.

Since there is no coup happening in Brazil, we still have to work on the country’s image abroad – most countries, listening to only a parcel of critiques and news from here, stated their support to Rousseff and started spreading that she was put out due to a coup. However, had these representatives any information about the reasons behind Rousseff’s exit?

Do they know she was taken from the government because she did made up official finances to deceive the National Treasury? Do they know she was one of the Head Officers in Petrobras, the oil company that was recently reduced to an insignificant parcel of what it used to be some years ago because of a billionaire financial gap of $25.3 billions, meanwhile the embezzlement was happening inside the enterprise? If they are all aware of these, and still support her government, that means they have no problems in repeating these actions in their own countries – by these, I mean misusing the public money or defrauding his country’s accountability, or else let their biggest oil company wrack due to an enormous public debt. If they are willing to do any of these, I sincerely do not trust in these countries – in fact, they are the real scammers, not Brazil.

President Salvador Sanchéz Crén, from El Salvador, one of the few countries that did not recognize Temer's government

Summarizing: before voting in any candidate to the Presidency, please read carefully the terms of the contract – which includes the Vice-President – because if you don’t agree with them, just change your candidate. The fact is if you accept a candidate to the Presidency, it means you also accept all his/her back-up gang. Temer was already a great ally to Rousseff before assuming the Vice-Presidency and it didn’t change a bit during her government. Only when she was about to be evicted from the Head Office, Temer started to discuss and make agreements to be put in practice when he assumes interim. He maintained some Ministers nominated by Rousseff, but changed others due to political interests – not differing from any previous President did when they were assuming the Chair. In addition, there is one other detail: it’s been only one week since Roussseff was officially away from her duties and that Temer assumed, so it is too early yet to judge whether he acted correctly or not. There is only one way out: only time…

Dilma Rousseff was impeached and Michel Temer assumes as Interim President

Now it’s official: after struggling months with doubts and uncertainties, the former President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Ms. Dilma Vana Rousseff, was ultimately impeached to continue her mandate for the next 180 days, until the final voting session to decide whether she will lose or not her government power and the official title of President. From today until then, the Presidency will be temporarily occupied by her current Vice-President, Mr. Michel Miguel Elias Temer Lulia. If Rousseff renounces her government, or if she is convicted in the last instance of the legislative process of her impeachment, Temer will be the Interim President until the next presidential run, scheduled to happen in 2018.

The last voting session took place at the Federal Senate, and went from 7:00pm (Brasília time zone) of last Wednesday (11) until the early hours of today (May 12th). The score was 55 votes in favour of Rousseff’s impeachment, 22 against it, zero abstentions, and two absences – the minimum required to approve any matter in the Senate is simple majority, that is 40 parliamentarians. Rousseff was officially notified on this morning and, some hours later, presented a speech to the press and the general public in which she reinforced the illegitimacy of her exit and also that there are no evidences proving the crimes she’s being accused.

The voting in the Senate happened without any general confusion or mess, opposite to what happened in the previous voting session in the Chamber of the Deputies, on April 17th, in which the parliamentarians were out of control, each one aggressively defending their political views. Although there were some breaks, the session took twenty exhausting hours and was dragged and tiresome.

The most applauded speech was Aécio Neves’s, ex-opponent to Rousseff during the last presidential run, in which he criticizes how the former President had been conducting Brazil’s political economy – he voted in favour of her impeachment. On the other side, the most silent moment throughout the voting was when the Senator Fernando Collor de Mello, former President of Brazil from 1990 to 1992 and who was also impeached to finish his mandate, went up the tribune to declare his vote – Collor said he warned Rousseff of her risks on keeping up with the government (he renounced before the voting in the Senate, so he only lost his political rights for 8 years), but the Office of the President “turned a deaf ear to me, relegate my experience”.

After Collor voted in favour of Rousseff’s exit, the current President of the Federal Senate, Renan Calheiros, discoursed about the repetition of mistakes in the government and how she lost the centrality of Brazilian nation. When the minimum quorum was reached to evict Rousseff from the government, the ruling parliamentarians, hopeless, opted to attack the decision taken by their colleagues. However, the result of voting clarified the majority dissatisfaction with Rousseff – although she states there were no crimes, the depth of her involvement in recent corruption scandals provoked the increase of dissatisfied people with her government and the whole PT era (PT, standing for Workers’ Party).

Just few hours after Rousseff and Temer were both notified of the power transition, the current Interim President presented his brand-new ministerial crew, with 22 official files instead of the 32 existing in Rousseff’s mandate. Some nominations, however, were a bit awkwardly received by the public: Gilberto Kassab (PSD/SP, standing for Social Democracy’s Party for São Paulo state) assumes the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications; Raul Jungmann (PPS/PE, standing for Popular Socialist Party for Pernambuco state) goes to the Ministry of Defense; Romero Jucá (PMDB/RR, standing for Brazilian Democratic Movement Party for Roraima state) takes on the Ministry of Planning, Development and Management; Geddel Vieira Lima (PMDB/BA, for Bahia state) is the new Chief Minister of Government Secretariat; Sérgio Etchegoyen, ex-Army Staff Chief, is now Chief Minister of Institutional Security Office; Bruno Araújo (PSDB/PE, standing for Brazilian Social Democracy Party) gets the Ministry of Villages; Blairo Maggi (PP/MT, standing for Progressive Party for Mato Grosso state) is now the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply; Henrique Meirelles, ex-president of Banco do Brasil (Brazil’s Bank), takes the Ministry of Finance; Mendonça Filho (DEM/PE, standing for Democrats) assumes the Ministry of Education and Culture; Eliseu Padilha (PMDB/RS, for Rio Grande do Sul state) was nominated as the new Chief Minister of Civil House; Osmar Terra (PMDB/RS) gets the Ministry of Social and Agrarian Development; Leonardo Picciani (PMDB/RJ, for Rio de Janeiro state) assumes the Ministry of Sports; Ricardo Barros (PP/PR, for Paraná state) is now the Minister of Health; José Sarney Filho (PV/MA, standing for Green Party for Maranhão state) gets the Ministry of Environment; Henrique Alves, who was Minister of Tourism during the first part of Rousseff’s second mandate and was fired by her, returns to his post with Temer as Interim President; José Serra (PSDB/SP) is the new Minister of International Affaires; Ronaldo Nogueira de Oliveira (PTB/RS, standing for Brazilian Worker’s Party) assumes the Ministry of Labour; Alexandre de Moraes, lawyer and legal consultant, is the new Minister of Justice; Maurício Quintella (PR/AL, standing for Republican Party for Alagoas state) gets the Ministry of Transport, Ports and Civil Aviation; Fabiano Augusto Martins Silveira, former Counselor at the National Council of Justice, now assumes as Minister of Supervision, Transparency and Control (previously known as the General Council of the Union); Marcos Pereira (PRB/ES, standing for Brazilian Republican Party for Espírito Santo state) gets the Ministry of Industry and Trade; and, finally, Fábio Medina Osório, jurist, assumes the General Attorney of the Union.

About some of the chosen ones: Kassab was already Minister of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications during Rousseff’s government; Jucá was one of the main responsibles for the continuity of the impeachment process; Vieira Lima is heavily cited in documents related to Operação Lava-Jato (Car Wash Operation); Araújo was the deputy responsible to the deciding vote at the Chamber of the Deputies to continue Rousseff’s impeachment; Padilha was Minister of Civil Aviation during FHC (standing for Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Brazil from 1994 to 2002), and was accused of irregularities in the payment of court orders; Sarney Filho is the son of José Sarney, former President of Brazil from 1985 to 1990, replacing Tancredo Neves, deceased before taking office, and also he was already Minister of Environment during FHC’s government; Serra was already candidate to the Presidency of Brazil twice, but was beaten first by Lula (2002) and after by Rousseff (2010); Quintella was convicted for joining a corruption scheme which diverted money intended for the payment of school meals, during his mandate as Secretary of Education in Alagoas state. By all these informations, it’s not that hard to infer that, although Rousseff was taken away from the government, there are still a lot of work to do in the name of Brazilian political welfare, so are there to heal the systemic corruption knotty to Brazilian corruption system.

Dilma Rousseff, until new changes, is not anymore the President of Brazil, and this is a true victory to Brazilian Parliament, since Rousseff was seen as persona non grata amidst parliamentarians due to her lack of dialogue with both Senate and Chamber of Deputies. However, having Temer as Interim President might be also dangerous to the actual fragile political system in the country, as he has a huge amount of work to do.

The economy is failed and destroyed; the politicians are very divided and making harder the agreements utterly important to approve laws; the society is still fiery, waiting for immediate results, and it’s his function to avoid new public uprisings if these changes do not come in the speed it wishes. Finally, he also must deal with the implications of the police investigation on Operação Lava-Jato, since Rousseff’s exit is not the last stand of the hard work the Legislative has been doing – there are still many things to be explained by the investigation, and Temer should not make any move to try avoiding it, or else the population will be angrily right to go and protest on the streets, as he will be doing the same thing Rousseff tried to do in her final months as President.

Warning

Hello everyone!

Tonight is the so-awaited voting session in the Federal Senate to decide whether the current President of Brazil, Ms. Dilma Rousseff, will be or not impeached to finish her mandate. I again repeat: my only intent with this blog is to inform you about Brazilian political situation, not indoctrinate you with my political view. Tomorrow, only after taken the decision, I commit to write a complete analysis of its main points, and also commenting the verdict.

Regards,
Rosa Kälin

The nonsense of Waldir Maranhão and his run to instantaneous fame

Just days after assuming the Presidency of the Chamber of Deputies, the deputy Waldir Maranhão (PP/MA, standing for Progressist Party from the state of Maranhão) has taken a surprising yet illegal decision on the morning of this Monday (9) – he simply annulled the plenary session in which the impeachment process against the current President of Brazil, Ms. Dilma Rousseff, was voted and approved by the majority of parliamentarians present there, without previous consulting to his colleagues nor the Internal Regiment of the House. If his action proceeds in the Parliament, the process should come back to the Chamber of Deputies to be voted again.

However, his action is completely illegal and has no legal support to proceed – not only he’s only the Interim President, replacing Eduardo Cunha, who was impeached to continue his regular mandate due to serious accusations of active corruption and other crimes against the National Treasury, but he wasn’t yet the Chief when the voting happened, so he supposedly should not interfere on actions taken previously his come-in. Although I am not any attorney to correctly judge the legality of Maranhão’s procedure, I guess that retroactive interference in court decisions taken by a collective of parliamentarians is not only illegal but also unquestioningly criminal, since Maranhão voted against the impeachment process in the previous voting and, now that he’s in charge, he is doing all he can to deny a massively popular decision in time to help his own private interests.

It might be quite impressive that, since Cunha was taken away from the Presidency of the House, the only parliamentarian he received to a formal meeting was Maranhão, which took a long hour from their time. It is presumed that Cunha instructed his successor to take his decision, although the former President of the Chamber of Deputies had positioned himself completely in favour of Rousseff’s impeachment due to her lack of collegiality during Cunha’s legal process to impeach him. Since there were no reciprocity, Cunha established he would continue Rousseff’s process until the end, which came when he was impeached after the expedition of an injunction. The press has been speculating that Cunha had made a deal with Rousseff, after his exit, to trade a mutual aid, and that is the reason why Maranhão, a previously illustrious unknown figure to most of Brazilians, took a so-careless decision during this hugely messy period the country is going through.

On the afternoon of this Monday, Renan Calheiros, the current president of the Federal Senate, announced that he was utterly against Maranhão’s procedure and that he would continue Rousseff’s impeachment process in the House he presides, as this decision was taken without any previous legal procedure nor any consulting to the voters involved. Said that, we can infer that Maranhão was only pursuing his fifteen minutes of fame as the Interim President of the Chamber of Deputies, and, for now, does not represent great danger to the power that emanates from the people.

Janaina Paschoal: what's wrong and what's right about her?

Although most politicians recently spotted by media are involved as part of the extensive list of culprits of Operação Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash) and the main characters of the legislative process of Dilma Rousseff's impeachment, there is one figure whose importance had been hidden until a couple of weeks ago: Janaina Paschoal, one of the applicants of Rousseff's process, besides jurist Hélio Bicudo and lawyer Miguel Reale Jr. Since her fiery speech to college students in São Paulo, Paschoal was thrown in the middle of a media circus and had already proven herself both as intelligent and super sincere, which can be seen as a dangerous duality for her allies and her enemies.

According to her professional history, Paschoal is a Ph.D. in Criminal Law by University of São Paulo and, since 2010, she is hired by the same University as a professor and a researcher of prevention of usage of narcotic drugs and, also, economic criminal law and undue interference. The doctoral supervisor of her Ph.D. was Reale Jr., professor at USP and now her colleague in the impeachment process. The main point here is, until this political scandal, Paschoal is in no way different from any other ordinary academic in Brazil. However, since she decided to take part on this process, her importance as spokeswoman of Rousseff's political opposition, she became a very dissonant figure amidst regular politicians.

On September 1st 2015, Paschaol, along with her colleagues, filed a petition to start an impeachment process against the current President of Brazil, Ms. Dilma Rousseff. Their petition was not the first to be filed at the Chamber of Deputies - there were thirty-seven previous requests to open an impeachment process against Rousseff. However, Eduardo Cunha, Chamber's president, approved only the one written by the aforementioned trio. Along with the petition, many pro-impeachment groups, such as Brasil Livre (Free Brazil) and Vem Pra Rua (Come to the Streets), joined the cause by publicly declaring their support to Paschoal et al. proposition. The main accusations of the request are: Rousseff's failure to correctly punish all people involved in Petrobras' scandal, which were investigated by Operação Lava Jato, such as her denials of any irregularities in the enterprise during the presidential run in 2014; Lula's influence peddling, which stands for using his privileged position as former President to benefit Rousseff in her meteoric political career, seen that she hadn't occupied any public chair before 2010 election - her previous work throughout Lula's government had been only by colleagues' indications; and, finally, the infamous "pedalling taxes", which stands for all the complex system of maneuver and manipulate data on public finances of Brazil, in order to circumvent the provision of government accounts and, thus, diverting public funds and destroying the riches of National Treasury.

All the accusations were stated by Paschoal and her colleagues, meanwhile the pro-government parliamentarians criticized and denied them, meaning to disqualify the process and the facts presented by the aforementioned jurists. However, Paschoal's capacity of leading the legislative process was heavily questioned when, during a speech to USP's students and ex-students on April 4th 2016, she overreacted to audience's animation and delivered an impassioned, fiery and exalted speech, talking about the spurious of government platform and claiming that God had sent a legion to cut the wing of snakes that have been perpetuated in the public power. Paschoal was extremely applauded by the presents, but heavily criticized by opponents and some allies for being too theatrical and for her attempt to indoctrinate and catechize college students to an extremist and, therefore, dangerous thought, leading them to join extremist right-wing political parties.

By one side, we can tell that Paschoal's fury throughout her pronouncement can be easily understood if we analyze her position inside the legislative process against Rousseff, as she is deeply involved in the investigation of all irregularities in the government, and also because the very same President belongs to an opposite ideological position. Not only Rousseff defends the left-wing ideology since her early years, seen that she fought as guerrilla fighter during the Brazilian dictatorship, but she also had been a very close ally to Lula since his first election, in 2002. As a result, Paschoal, being a right-wing defender, is absolutely right to use her arguments in order to discredit Rousseff's speech, as seen every day in the Parliament, whichever being the Senate or the Chamber of Deputies. However, by other side, it's clear that Paschoal overreacted during her speech, maybe because of synergy between her and students and allies, maybe because she was using her power of convincement the same way many other euphoric representatives had already done, such as Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher, or Adolf Hitler. By this reason, the pro-government parliamentarians were afraid of her, because she can round up both those undecided ones about what to think about the impeachment process as those discredited from leftist cause proposed by PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores, standing for Workers' party).

Summing up: Paschoal has the right to deliver her fiery speech and to try convincing whoever she wants to with her words, since leftists have already been doing this for ages, but she isn't the greatest example of a regular rightist defender, since her speech is as extremist as Lula's or any other left-wing representatives. So she has the guts to take over leftists and say her truth on their faces, but she must be equally prepared to hear their responses, which can come in the same intensity or worse. The most recent proof of Paschoal's inability to deal with this was her testimony in Senate on last Friday (29/04), in which she was pranked by her colleague Randolfe Rodrigues (Rede/AP, standing for Sustainability Network in the state of Amapá) - using his skills as orator, he set an oral trap to Paschoal, making her defend an eventual Michel Temer's impeachment process - Temer is the current Vice-President and he eventually would take place as President if Rousseff were impeached, but he also has a big list of crimes he had committed and could be also dropped from his position if the Federal Justice accepts the accusations against him. Paschoal fell in the trap and accidentally defended Temer's dropout and, after noticing the mistake, she was embarrassed and tried to explain herself, which was taken for granted by the parliamentarian, since she had impassionedly defended Temer from the very same accusations previously on the testimony. These happenings lead us to conclude that, although Paschoal is extremely prepared to defend her ideals, she is still a regular college professor and has no left field to deal with the acumen of these smart-ass parliamentarians who are discussing Roussef's eventual exit.

The political path of Dilma Rousseff and its mischiefs

The international media press has been watching Dilma Rousseff's impeachment process from a far position and, based only on official announcements by the government and its representatives, has been calling it a "coup". Before making any judgment about the legitimacy of the process, it's utterly important to understand its accusations and also its defenses. As a reminder I should say it's not my interest to either support or boycott Rousseff's government – my main reason is to inform how things are going on in a less opinionated way, differing from most newspapers and magazines all over Brazil.

Rousseff was first elected as President in 2010, after a large battle against José Serra, her main opponent, with whom she faced a second voting round and won with 56.05% of valid votes. Before being launched as candidate, Rousseff was not a popular figure in Brazil, like her antecessor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, but she gained his support on her presidential campaign – they are both from the same political party, PT (standing for Worker's Party). During the first round, Rousseff was competing against the following candidates: José Serra (PSDB, standing for Brazilian Social Democracy's Party), Marina Silva (PV, standing for Green Party), Plínio de Arruda Sampaio (PSOL, standing for Socialism and Liberty Party), José Maria Eymael (PSDC, standing for Social Democrat Christian Party), José Maria de Almeida (PSTU, standing for Unified Workers' Socialist Party), Levy Fidélix (PRTB, standing for Brazilian Worker Renewing Party), Ivan Pinheiro (PCB, standing for Brazilian Communist Party), and Rui da Costa Pimenta (PCO, standing for Factory Workers' Cause Party). According to official data, the 2010 presidential election owned around 101 million of valid votes, from which 47 million were meant for Rousseff, and 33 million, for Serra. The Brazilian law states that a second round is mandatory if none of the candidates reach more than 50% of valid votes – Rousseff reached only 46.91%, and Serra, 32.61%. As a result, both candidates fought against each other, and Rousseff won over Serra's percentage of 43.95%.

During her first government, Dilma Rousseff had hard times as a politician, since she had never been elected to any public occupation before. So she didn't have enough political experience, which led her to be truly unpopular amidst parliamentarians, making decision takings harder than usual. Throughout the four years of her command, she had Lula as her mentor and a present figure beside her, since he was a very popular president and has agreements with many important people into political sphere. Although, Rousseff was not a great politician, which led to her unpopularity as President, not only nationally, but also internationally (she doesn't have the same appeal as Lula to make deals with other countries), seen as an impassive Head of State (as she hardly ever negotiates with the Parliament, both Federal Senate and Chamber of Deputies, to approve her Constitutional Amendments).

In 2013, Rousseff faced a great political crisis when people rioting against, at first, the increase of bus tickets' price, but, shortly after, against the whole sickness of Brazilian political system. Her effiency as a President started being questioned, because of her mistakes as an administrator, so when she announced that she was running for re-election in 2014, it was quite unclear if she was capable of reconquering her popularity in time.

For 2014 presidential election, Rousseff faced competition against these candidates: Aécio Neves (PSDB), who faced the second round against her; Marina Silva (PSB, standing for Brazilian Socialist Party); Luciana Genro (PSOL); Eduardo Jorge (PV); Levy Fidélix (PRTB); José Maria de Almeida (PSTU); José Maria Eymael (PSDC); Mauro Iasi (PCB); e Rui da Costa Pimenta (PCO). Although Neves was the candidate who reached the second round, after receiving 33.55% of valid notes (Rousseff received 41.59%), he was almost defeated by increasing popularity of Marina Silva, who tried to run for election by a brand-new party, Rede Sustentabilidade (standing for Sustainability Network) but was ultimately prevented to get the party's registration and ran to another party, PSB. Silva, despite this confusion, owned 22 million votes, which is definitely not negligible.

However, the second round was fought by Rousseff and Neves, with the President being re-elected with 51.64% of valid votes, against 48.36% for Neves. In comparison to her first victory, Rousseff's popularity had clearly decreased, such as her acceptance as a leader among parliamentarians. In addition, Rousseff made a bunch of promises during the presidential run but she simply accomplished exactly the opposite of most of them right after being re-elected. She promised to lower oil's price – the price had a great increase shortly after the election and has been like this since then. She promised to resume the increase of economy – Brazil faces its worst economic crisis, with two following years of recession. She promised to control inflation – the target ceiling was surpassed, and now inflation is at 9.0%, its worst result since 2003. She promised not to increase interest rate – the basic interest rate (Selic) is currently 14.25%, since inflation is forcing its increase. She promised not to increase energy bill – since her re-election, the electric energy's price had increased 44.75%. She also promised many other things, as written in her government plan, presented during the election, containing around 55 promises.

Besides all these unaccomplished campaign promises, since they didn't fully depend on the President's willing, another big trouble led to the massive dissatisfaction with Rousseff: the "pedaling taxes", or the financial maneuver to hide the poor reality behind Brazilian economic situation, presenting lower expenses to a lured society and National Treasury. This is the main accusation against Rousseff on the impeachment process – crime of fiscal responsibility – and that's why people are complaining about the legitimacy of it, as some don't consider "pedaling taxes" a crime because it is a common practice in nowadays' politic sphere. Many Governors from Brazilian states had already practiced this bureaucratic failure, which implies in luring the Treasury by hiding real accounting data, intending to divert public funds to finance the unfortunately endemic corruption. As a result, the main excuse used by Rousseff's defense is that the practice is not illegal and that accusation is not only irresponsible but also an attempt to force a new government over the democratically elected one. Let's be clear: according to the Criminal Code, the "pedaling taxes" practices are implied under the crime of financial statement makeup – a variation of crime of fiscal responsibility -, liable on conviction of one or two years of prison. Also, it can be inferred from the Law n. 1,079, from 04/10/1950, that the President, if caught breaking the Budget Law, can be convicted of its crime and evicted from the Head Office. Finally, the accusation against Rousseff is not an illegitimate attempt of coup, but a real crime committed by her and her political allies, and it must be punished according to what the law says.

Deputies and their struggles during the voting for Rousseff's impeachment process

The plenary session at the Chamber of Deputies on last Sunday (April 17th), in which the impeachment process against President Dilma Rousseff was voted favorable, was a huge mess throughout the whole period of nine hours that it took to happen. Exceptionally working during the weekend, the deputies were very pettish and exalted while live on national TV to declare their votes. Many parliamentarians were arguing in front of cameras and the press, and they also used their time at the microphone to criticize their colleagues and enemies while they were supposed to voted "yes" or "no" for the subject in discussion. In addition, while they were giving their speeches, most of representatives dedicated their votes for random people, from their relatives and wives, to militaries previously involved in tortures during the Brazilian dictatorial government, which led the Internet to make fun of them creating memes and all kinds of jokes and mocks. Unfortunately this is the imagery of Brazil abroad - a completely messy country, with corruption everywhere, and a frankly unstable democracy.

One of the most disturbing presences in the session was the Federal Deputy Paulo Maluf (PP/SP, standing for the Progressive Party in São Paulo). Maluf is a widely known figure for Brazilians - since the 1960s he had been involved with politics, having already been mayor in São Paulo city, governor in São Paulo estate, and many other occupations, but have been in decadence since the ends of the 1990s, when he had troubles while occupying the Town Hall of São Paulo and was firstly investigated under the accusations of active corruption during the Mensalão case, when he was one of the right-hand men of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, widely known for his surname Lula. Nowadays, Maluf is still a parliamentarian because nothing has been officially proven against him in previous investigations about his direct involvement with any corruption scandal; in the other hand, he is included in Interpol Red Diffusion since 2010, which means he cannot run abroad Brazil or, otherwise, he might risk being arrested in more than 180 countries. After the troubles caused by his involvement in Mensalão, Maluf was sidelined by Lula and the left-wing government; for this reason, he has been a wide critic of Rousseff's leading, voting favorable for her impeachment.

Another curious parliamentarian present in the voting was Federal Deputy Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva, widely known for his surname Tiririca (PR/SP, standing for Republic's Party in São Paulo). Elected in 2010 to occupy a chair in the Chamber of Deputies, Tiririca wrote his name in the estate political history, being the third most voted deputy to be elected in the history of Brazil, earning more than 1,300 million votes at the time. Before being a politician, however, Tiririca was already famous in Brazil for his career as a humorist and circus clown - he had been presenting as a clown since his eight years old, and became a popular figure after signing a contract with Universal Music and recording the song "Florentina", which became a big hit and sold more than 1,5 million of copies. He was also a famous humorist on TV, appearing in most of known TV shows all over Brazil. When he was invited to launch his candidacy as federal deputy, his motto was a joke - or not: "Worst than that, it can't be", talking about the bad reputation of Brazilian political system. Curiously, Tiririca was, since he entered the Parliament, the most frequent parliamentarian, being present in 100% of plenary sessions - he was followed by only nine other deputies, from a total amount of 513. His vote favorable to Rousseff's impeachment was controversial - PT (standing for Worker's Party, the political party of Rousseff) was very upset after Tiririca broke his promise of voting against the process. Since then, he was taunted in an airport by some supporters of the party, claiming he is traitor and doesn't take seriously his job as a politician.

Finally, the most controversial event that happened during the voting session was the squabble between the parliamentarians Jean Wyllys (PSOL/RJ, standing for Socialism and Liberty Party in Rio de Janeiro) and Jair Bolsonaro (PSC/RJ, standing for Social Christian Party in Rio de Janeiro). Firstly, Bolsonaro was called by the President of Chamber of Deputies, Mr. Eduardo Cunha, to declare his vote for the impeachment process. The deputy made a angry speech about his dismissal with all of his colleagues who were favorable for Rousseff's continuity as President, and dedicated his "yes" to the militaries who took the Brazilian government in 1964, and also to Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, ex-chief of DOI-CODI, responsible for all tortures throughout the dictatorial period. Rousseff is widely known for being an ex-guerrilla fighter, who was arrested in 1970 and tortured in prison; so, Bolsonaro's speech was seen as a disrespectful twaddle against the President, and now he's being sued for his words. After this, Wyllys, known for being an ex-participant in TV reality show "Big Brother" and for his work as a deputy for the LGBT community, was called to declare his vote and, once there, made a speech about the foolishness of the impeachment process, hailed Rousseff's government, and declared "no" to her exit. When he was finishing his speech, Bolsonaro, who was standing behind Wyllys, cursed him by offending his sexuality. In response, Wyllys spat on Bolsonaro's face, and also took a spit from Eduardo Bolsonaro, Jair's son and also a federal deputy. For yet unknown reasons, the Legislative Police didn't interfere in none of the confusions between the parliamentarians during the voting process, despite constant appeals from Eduardo Cunha.

Certainly some conclusions can be extracted from these events: first, the Chamber of Deputies wasn't ready at all for this messy plenary session, as seen on images from that day, showing a truly messed up room with many men stood up and screaming to each other; second, Brazilian politicians are covered in mud until their necks, which can be inferred from their curricula as parliamentarians and their previous activities before entering the politics; and third, prejudice and religious extremism are both cancers for the proper functioning of Brazil as a serious country, and for human development , seen that none of them help in teaching kids about great social values. As long as it is completely unacceptable that a parliamentarian uses the figure of a torturer as an example of conduct, it is as unacceptable as another parliamentarian spits on a colleague's face during an official and professional event, being massively registered by all kinds of media outlets. As long as having a representative being chased by Interpol is insanely outrageous, having a President heavily involved with corruption scandals and the biggest robbery in a public enterprise (Petrobras, the oil company which originated the investigation under Rousseff's impeachment process) is as outrageous as Maluf still being eligible to hold public offices.