“DILMA Out, PT out,” rang the angry chants up and down São Paulo’s Avenida Paulista on a blazing Sunday afternoon on April 12th. They were echoed in towns and cities across Brazil. Yet the demonstrators have already won more than they realise. Less than four months into her second term, President Dilma Rousseff remains in office but for many practical purposes is no longer in power. And the nominally ruling left-wing Workers Party (PT) no longer calls the shots in Brasília, the capital.
Even Ms Rousseff’s tenancy in the Planalto palace is not wholly certain. Thanks to the inflammatory combination of a deteriorating economy and a massive corruption scandal at Petrobras, the state oil company, she is now deeply unpopular. The demonstrators want her impeached, as do 63% of respondents to one recent poll. This week the opposition was receiving legal opinions as to whether she can be impeached, over Petrobras or for violating a fiscal-responsibility law that is supposed to prevent the spending splurge she arranged to get re-elected.
It is an extraordinary comedown. For 12 years the PT dominated Brazil’s politics, thanks to the social...
from The Economist: The Americas http://ift.tt/1K9bW8k
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