CM

Right now democracy and the rule of law is at stake. Every day the escalating crisis gains clearer contours and it appears that indeed a coup d’etat is on the way. It is not a classic coup, promoted or supported by the military. Instead, it’s disguised under the banner of the impeachment process.

Although the ability to impeach an elected president is constitutionally provided, it needs to be grounded in, and justified by, some crime. It’s an extreme measure — with far-reaching implications for the social and political order and the democratic process — and so should not be misused.

Fiscal responsibility — not corruption — is currently the main legal argument used by the coalition of forces working to force Dilma Rousseff out of the presidency and the Workers’ Party out of government. The request to begin the impeachment process was accepted based on a petition accusing her of fiscal mismanagement.

This concerns a procedure referred to as “pedalas fiscais” — a procedure introduced in 2000 to regulate government expenditures in all levels of government.

Under the law, government administrations must predict the risk that they’ll go over budget, and have their accounts approved every fiscal year by an auditing authority. The policy was meant to promote transparency and to help to end impunity of bad managing practices in public administration.

But here’s the rub. To meet the new regulations, the Brazilian government (at all levels) borrows its own money (from a public bank or fund) to cover deficitary budget items for that year. Then, when the government money for the next fiscal year is cashed in, the government pays itself back and returns the borrowed money. This can also happen over a larger time span, as is the case now, when the deficit spans two or three years.

It’s a mundane accounting trick but it’s not a minor issue. The law is meant to provide economic stability and to help control inflation. When we consider that Brazil’s current development model is largely based on public expenditure (infrastructure, procurements, etc) and indebtedness, this predicted risk can become an important “instability” index for the economy as a whole.

This practice, and Dilma’s responsibility for what has been done at federal level, is the legal basis for the impeachment request. Whether Dilma’s administration has been “irresponsible” is what is going to be decided at the last stage of the process, in the Supreme Court. The judges will ultimately decide if her administration’s actions constitute a crime and whether she will lose her mandate.

But even if there is not a juridical fact that justifies it, there is a political fact that is pushing the entire process forward.

Parallel to the impeachment is the huge, and unprecedented, Lava Jato anti-corruption investigation, which is exposing the structural connections between economic and political power in the country. The consequences of the investigation are yet unknown.

But many on the Left share the hypothesis that the alliance — now clustered around Vice President Michel Temer — driving Dilma’s impeachment have a vested interest in the direction Lava Jato takes.

Impeaching Dilma can provide a sense of “justice served,” “page turned,” etc, while giving those who come to power in her place influence over the investigations. They can then can water them down and prevent much greater damage to the big tycoons and business interests involved. The media is a key player in selling this narrative: “PT out equals problem solved” — as if it were that simple.

In this context, the impeachment is a type of political subterfuge. It’s a silver bullet for what’s actually a much deeper political crisis. The case is embedded in an increasingly polarized social context shaped by massive media (and social media) campaigns against the PT, and against a background of economic slowdown, inflation, rising unemployment, devaluation of the Real, etc.