BRAZIL’S GDP shrank by 1.9% in the second quarter of 2015 compared with the previous quarter, the biggest decline by that measure since 2009. Compared with the same quarter last year, the economy contracted by 2.6%. This continues a sequence of dismal numbers. The unemployment rate rose to 7.5% in July, from 4.9% a year earlier—the fastest annual rise on record. Inflation remains high. GDP will continue shrinking in 2016, economists forecast.

Despite the gloom, Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s beleaguered president, has scored a few political victories. She pushed curbs on payroll-tax breaks through Congress, which will help cut the fiscal deficit; the government also said it would close ten of its 39 ministries. And a powerful foe was isolated when the chief prosecutor charged the speaker of Congress’s lower house with corruption. Even protests this month, which drew nearly 1m people angry about graft in Ms Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, were smaller than she had feared.

But the respite could be brief. Analysts are worried by recent reports that her vice-president, Michel Temer, a member of the PMDB, is giving up the job of co-ordinating the government’s dealings with Congress. They fear that his successor will be a less effective backer of fiscal austerity. And as the economy sinks, the ranks of disgruntled Brazilians will grow.

Dig deeper:

Brazil's economic mess, in charts (August 2015)

Why Brazil risks becoming stuck in an economic rut (February 2015)